Little Talks
by DaifukuBun
Summary: When Arthur wakes up across the pond with no memories and learns that his family is dead, he is, ironically, given the best few years of his life. Of course, nothing is real when you fall asleep. Human AU. Present time. USUK.
1. This Old and Empty House

**Welcome.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this fanfiction, or the song that inspired it.**

**USUKUSUK**

It all started with a bang. Well, no, not really a bang, more of a startling crash and the sound of things hitting a floor so dusty it was nearly soundproof. A crash and several thuds accompanying it.

Groggy green eyes blearily blinked awake to the sight of clear little dust particles floating up from the splintery floor, and a very, very broken window with streams of morning light peeking through. Arthur sat upright, his previously tired eyes flashing awake in surprise. He set foot on the ground, forgetting about the fact that the window was indeed broken and that he was barefoot and in thin pajamas. He shot upright again to avoid a painful collision with wayward shards of glass and landed on his bottom, away from the dangerous mess of glass.

Just as Arthur was about to sigh and call for his mother, or perhaps just clean the mess himself, there was a loud knock at his front door along with an even louder outburst of incoherent shouting he couldn't understand a word of. Followed by another quieter voice, this one a sweet solace compared to the first.

The young blonde furrowed his eyebrows and stood again, haphazardly noting the stray baseball that landed right in the middle of the glass mess. Yes, this situation was becoming more clear by the minute. Some kid must have gotten a little too enthusiastic playing catch and thrown it through his bedroom window by accident. It wasn't Arthur's problem, the rowdy kids would have to pay for it themselves. He grudgingly picked up the worn baseball and toed around the glass, careful not to accidentally pillow the little shards with his feet, and left dusty footprints on the wooden floor on the way outside his room. The hall was ridiculously dusty, too, but not as bad as his bedroom. He couldn't recall the place being so filthy yesterday, nor was he focusing on his surroundings much. Arthur was more intent on stopping the rampant yelling outside the front door.

As Arthur got closer to the front door the knocking and shouting became louder. It was definitely two boys arguing over something. The raucous voice was heatedly saying something to the softer one, in a manner similar to pleading. It was accompanied by several hics and hitching breaths.

"Al, hey- Alfred, a ghost is not going to answer the door, I don't even think anyone lives here, wha- _Al._" that was the quieter voice, and Arthur could now discern that it in fact belonged to a boy. A boy with an extremely soft voice.

"But you don't _know _that Mattie! It's been forever-" he stopped to let out a sniffle, "It's been forever since anyone's been here! And I heard _footsteps_!"

Arthur huffed from the other side of the door. Of course this house wasn't empty! His mother, his brothers, and himself had all been occupying this house for years! The nerve of these people! He put on his best offended glare, making sure to furrow his intimidating eyebrows in the most frightening way possible, and yanked the front door open.

Arthur resisted the urge to snicker when the taller of the two boys, presumably Alfred, quickly and discreetly wiped at his eyes and tried to hide a squeak.

"Oh, _maple,_" 'Mattie', the boy with the softer voice, breathed. "Er, hi, we uh, I think our ball ended up here, eh?"

Instead of answering the soft-spoken boy, he glared at the other one, the one with the confident cowlick and irritatingly loud voice.  
"I'll have you know," Arthur began, "my family and I have lived here for _years_! I don't know where all this ghost nonsense is coming from, but I'll be having none of it! And where are your manners, shouting like that outside my door? Watch where you throw that ball, too! Go to the park to do that sort of thing, not in the quiet of this neighborhood! And another thing..."

Alfred stopped listening to the rant at this point, giving his brother a sidelong glance that portrayed their equal confusion.

"Are you even listening?!" Arthur jabbed an accusing finger in front of Alfred's face, making him cross his eyes to focus on the accusing digit.  
"Er... nope." he said dumbly.

Matthew nudged his oblivious brother away from Arthur's line of fire, giving him a sincere, polite, and slightly confused smile.

"Sorry, but it was me who hit the window. It was an accident."

Arthur blinked, raising his gigantic eyebrows. "Oh." He handed the ball to Matthew, inwardly berating himself for making such assumptions. It was just that the other one looked much guiltier, and, well, he was much easier to yell at.

"No, no, I'm sorry for assuming." he reluctantly nodded to Alfred. "But I really have lived here for a while. I don't think anyone but me is home right now, though..."

The brothers gave him an odd look, but otherwise didn't question the doubted statement. They knew for a fact that no one had lived in the house for a very long time, and probably would have said as much if they weren't dealing with a scarily grumpy British kid. If he truly lived there, why hadn't they seen him in school before? They were a rather closely knit community, and it wasn't often that they met someone new.

"Ah, may I ask your names?" Arthur asked uncomfortably, still feeling awkward from the previous exchange and shuffling on his feet.

"Matthew." the violet-eyed one answered, alternating his eyes between Arthur and the unusually dusty room behind him.

"Alfred!" the other beamed, even though there wasn't really a reason to. "Or you could just call me The Hero, and I'll call you Eyebrows! 'Cause your eyebrows are huge!" Alfred grinned and poked one of said eyebrows, apparently convincing himself they weren't actually fuzzy caterpillars sticking to Arthur's face.

Arthur batted his hand away, regaining his scowl. "I beg your pardon!"

"Well!" Matthew said loudly enough to intervene another rant from Arthur. "I think we should be heading home, right Al? We live just down the road there Arthur, if you ever need anything, or, well, yeah." he pointed to a cozy house on the corner of the block. The only real reason Matthew was offering was because a random foreign kid showing up in a vacant, dusty house didn't exactly sit well with the kind Canadian.

"Whatever." Alfred shrugged, already leaving and for some reason pissing Arthur off even more just by walking away.

Matthew let out an exasperated groan, tagging along behind Alfred in a way that clearly implied the American was terribly vexing to be around. Arthur watched the exchange for a short while until they were out of sight, then laughed dryly. He couldn't recall ever meeting these people, and he certainly would have remembered them if he had. Shutting the door, the British teen turned on his heel and glared disapprovingly at the filthy state of the house. As he retrieved the broom from the closet, he briefly realized that nothing was ever said about the broken window. Arthur dismissed it, deciding to instead just clean the mess while he could.

**USUKUSUK**

This wasn't right, no, no it wasn't right at all. It was as if he wasn't even in his own house anymore. The furniture was all wrong, it wasn't even the same things, and they were in the wrong places. Adding onto the fact that they were all _incredibly _filthy, and that it would take a lot more than sweeping to rid the house of this mess, Arthur was starting to wonder if this was even his house. It was strange, it had been hours since he had risen that morning and realized that his family was, peculiar as the term was to him, missing. He had yet to receive a single phone call, message, expecting everything but getting nothing from them. Where were they? Deciding that he had fretted enough on the subject, he set the dustpan he had been holding on the sofa, clearing his mind and moving to go outside and get a bit of fresh air.

Arthur sighed shakily, sitting on the house's back porch that he was too afraid to call his own. He remembered what his own house looked like, of course. The place was small, quaint, but new and pristine. It was fit for a quiet, peaceful family such as his, it was made for those days baking burnt cookies in the bright dapple kitchen he had become so accustomed to. Made for their little arguments that seemed protected underneath the sturdy, bulky walls, the arguments that were comfortable staying in the little confinement of the rambling structure. Nothing like this big manor-like work of art, with carved wood and antique furniture that seemed befitting for an old wealthy bachelor instead of a fickle British family.

Yes, he wasn't sure what he had been thinking that morning, not noticing such things from the moment he laid eyes on them. Perhaps it was the surprise of being woken by a shattered window, or the leftover grogginess of bittersweet forgotten dreams.

Maybe the two boys he'd met this morning were right, and there really had been no inhabitants in a long time. The thought scared Arthur less than it should have, because the questions remained, then. Why was he here? Where was his family? He could remember them so clearly, it was becoming unsettling.

Arthur rested the heels of his palms against his eyes, attempting to sigh away his inhibitions and just remember what the hell happened already. However, it would seem luck was definitely not on his side. Definitely not.

"Hey, Eyebrows!"

Arthur raised his head and removed his hands, giving the American a dismal look as he peeked over Arthur's white picket fence.

Then, Alfred started laughing hysterically. Arthur quirked an eyebrow in his direction, which only served to make the immature boy guffaw even more.

"What is it?" Arthur demanded tiredly, giving Alfred an icy stare that didn't intimidate him in the least.

"It's- your- pffhwahaha-"

The English boy curled in on himself and stood from his perch on the paved porch, turning away from the hysterical boy and sliding open the glass door. "Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not funny at all." he called.

"Wait!" Alfred started.

Arthur looked over his own shoulder with an unfriendly, expectant look.

"I'm not trying to be mean, but- haha, uh your eyebrows are all messy. Do you have a comb for them or somethin'? 'Cause it looks like you need one. But I mean are you okay? Your eyes are all red too."

Arthur flushed out of embarrassment, brushing the unruly brows down with his hand and cursing the fact that he was one of the few people who could get snarls in their eyebrows. Not just fixable unruliness, full-on snarls.

"Yes, yes, I'm just fine. Merely tired and confused."

"Oh." Alfred said awkwardly. There was a momentary pause, and then the shuffling sounds of wood creaking and awkward stumbling. Wood creaked and hinges squeaked as Alfred began to squirm.

"What are you-"

"Climbing the fence." the younger boy answered matter-of-factly, hoisting himself up with his fore-arms wrapped around one of the white pickets. He shuffled his feet as if running up a slippery slope, and it wasn't all that much different considering he was trying to run up a vertical surface.

Arthur watched, a bewildered expression crossing his face at the boy's crazy efforts. Alfred made a noise similar to a squeak as his tummy pushed against the top of the fence, then he pushed forward and landed with a breathless 'ow'.

"... Why did you do that?" Arthur frowned, "I could have just let you in the front door."

"'Cause I wanted to." he said from his spot on the grass, spreading his arms out and looking up at the sky. Then, he craned his head and glanced at Arthur upside-down. "Because why not?"

Arthur was beginning to deign this Alfred guy as being extremely outlandish.

"I see..." Arthur said, though it was a lie because absolutely nothing was making sense right now. He approached the sprawled out younger boy, looking down at his skewed glasses with an odd expression. The fluffy clouds were reflecting off the thick frames, and the blue of Alfred's eyes actually made it seem like an actual sky. Of course, he wasn't ogling over the boy's eyes like some sort of blushing schoolgirl, he just thought they looked rather nice like that. Like a burst of clarity after an unclear day.

"You don't live here." Alfred said casually, as if he wanted to talk about it like the weather.

"Yes, I do." _No, you don't, _he told himself.

"No, you don't. We looked it up." Alfred sighed and fixed his glasses. "I'm here 'cause Mattie made me come check on you. You don't live here, Fuzzbrows."

"_Fuzzbrows-"_

"Dude seriously you should get a heavy duty razor for those monsters. Anyway, what do you expect me to do when you don't answer the door and I find you almost crying back here? I mean, I'm not one to agree with my smarty-pants brother all the time but there's definitely some fishy business going on here. And I think you're just confused as we are. We haven't told our mom or nothin', 'cause she'd probably flip out and call the cops reporting a found kid- wait, is that what you are? Did you run away?"

"I most certainly am not a runaway," Arthur scoffed, giving the younger boy an almost offended scowl.

"Then what's your deal?" Alfred fussed with his glasses, trying and failing to align them with his eyes at the odd angle.

The British teen glared hard at Alfred, then gave up and sighed.

"What makes you think I know?" Arthur sat down next to the younger, crossing his legs and resting his hands on his palms. "You expect me to have an answer as to why I woke up in a completely unfamiliar house this morning. I'm not even going to mention the broken window right now."

"That wasn't me..." Alfred whined.

"I know it wasn't you. I don't blame your brother for it either. Hell, it isn't even my house. What can I do about it?" Arthur worried at his lower lip and gazed into the green blades of grass below his feet, as if they would give him some sort of answer.

Alfred sat up, keeping his legs stretched out before him and turning to give Arthur a confused look.

"Well, if you don't live there, where do you live?" he inquired, and Arthur noticed that, even though he hadn't known him very long, he assumed him to be the type to be ridiculously outspoken. Yet at this moment he was being politely inquiring.

"I live in London. Well, the outskirts of London. It's a lot greener when you're not in the city, but it's still nice to be so close." Already Arthur was wishing he was at home by the cozy fireplace. He wished he was curled up with a nice cup of tea and a riveting novel.

Alfred quirked an eyebrow. "London? Like... London, England?"

"Yes, why?"

"Uh..."

"Well, what is it?"

"I should probably start by saying you're not even close to England right now." Alfred tensed his shoulders at the look he received from Arthur. It was such a ruffled expression that under another circumstance he'd probably giggle and taunt him.

"What?" It sounded sharp and demanding, surprised. Arthur may as well have cut the American off mid-sentence. "What do you mean?"

Looking at the green-eyed teen, Alfred could tell that just the idea of being an ocean away from his supposed home country wasn't the best thing for his emotional state. Arthur began fidgeting nervously, and let out a sharp, false laugh. It wasn't the type of laugh that came from humor.

"I mean, you're an ocean away. You're in the states. Yanks and all that."

Arthur simply couldn't wrap his mind around that. It wasn't that he didn't believe it, he just didn't understand. How on Earth had he found his way to America, of all places? Why was he here? He had never longed more for his mother's warm smile or his father's gruff reassurances. He even wished for his siblings' presence, as it was a heartful reminder of home and everyday life. Now, though, he was stranded in a foreign country, without even a trace of familiarity. It wasn't that he was immediately dropping to his knees and sobbing, or trembling out of fear, he was 16 for goodness sake, he just wasn't sure how to react. It was like confusion, as an entity, had just marched its way into his life and slapped him in the face.

The idea was ridiculous, actually. He recalled going to sleep in his own room the night before. It had been an unproductive day, a weekend. Arthur's siblings had gone off somewhere, and he found it strange that he couldn't recall where they were. Nonetheless, he could clearly remember several details, such as his cat, Teacup, running away. He remembered going outside to look for the spotted fold, spending a few minutes wandering about the front yard in fruitless search. This wasn't an unusual occurrence, so he had thought nothing of it and returned inside. A few hours later, after a terribly charred dinner made by his mother, he found himself curling up in a newly washed off-green duvet. Oddly, the remembrance of feeling his eyes slowly shut caught Arthur's attention. It was strange, being as that normally would be a completely normal thing, but this time was just... off. It was as if he hadn't fallen asleep at all. Something about the memory had an unsettling tint of restlessness.

Dismissing it, Arthur came back to reality. He wasn't entirely sure what to say to Alfred, after all, everything about this situation wasn't something that happened. It was hardly possible to fathom, let alone talk about.

"Don't remember anything?" Alfred gave Arthur a concerned look.

"Not a thing." he answered. Eyes alighting, he suddenly got an idea."I don't-" Arthur took a moment to check his pockets, "I don't suppose you have a mobile phone on you?"

Alfred shook his head apologetically. "I don't, but I guess you could come use one at my place. I don't think anyone would mind. My mom's real strict about the whole, 'no phones until you're sixteen' thing so I don't have one."

Arthur nodded. "May I? I just want to see if I can contact my family somehow. I'd imagine they're very worried about me, what with disappearing overnight."

"Sure thing." the American affirmed and stood, waiting for Arthur to lead the way through the strange house as he wasn't too keen on climbing the splintery fence again.

They commenced into threshold of the house, and Alfred had to do a double take at the sorry state of the place. It wasn't that it was grimy or sickly, more so that everything was just completely coated in a thick film of dust and lint. There was a single trail of cleanliness and an abandoned dustpan near the antique sofa, but other than that, the place was literally lined with the stuff. It was, in a way, off-putting. The two found themselves in the weeded but spacious front yard of the old house, traversing down the wraparound cobblestone driveway and into the much less wealthy parts of the neighborhood.

As Arthur followed after Alfred, they found themselves bathed in an awkward silence. Or, to Alfred it was awkward. Arthur used it as time to think.

Had someone somehow managed to transport him across the Atlantic within the span of one night? If so, why him? Who would go through so much trouble just to get a whiny English kid into the states? No, that idea was preposterous. No one would, without a dangerous motive that would have shown itself by now.

It wasn't long before Arthur found himself standing in front of a quaint little house. It sat on the corner of the block, and was covered in pale yellow paint with white siding in some places. The little home was a nice comparison to everything that had happened thus far.

"Just a sec'." Alfred opened the door and disappeared into the house. From outside, Arthur could hear the sound of Alfred speaking with someone.

Arthur shuffled on his feet uncomfortably and leaned on one of the white columns supporting the porch, sighing resignedly to himself. Nothing was making sense. Who was he to make these people help him? At the moment all he was asking for was a phone call, but still, he wasn't sure what good his own family could do from across the Atlantic Ocean, even if they were relieved at learning his location. He felt as though he was doing nothing but imposing on everyone, and he couldn't do a thing about it. They would probably just end up calling the police and getting the situation figured out from there. Whatever 'there' was. Probably a lecture he didn't deserve and a questioning he wouldn't know how to answer.

"Uh," Alfred peeked out from behind the door, looking highly uncomfortable. "Yeah, come on in."

Matthew gave him a nervous smile from behind his brother and gave Arthur a cell phone, presumably belonging to the quieter boy.

"So he has a mobile, but you don't?" Arthur inquired, quirking an impressive eyebrow.

"Well, he's sixteen..."

Arthur made a sound of understanding and dialed the number he'd become familiar with and held the phone to his ear, looking at the tiled floor instead of the two curious stares.

The phone began to signal that it was searching, the ring sounding in his ears and repeating.

Arthur frowned when there was no answer and he only received a default voice message. He snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Matthew, scowling at nothing all the while.

"No luck?" Matthew offered. "We have a computer too, if you think it will help."

Arthur nodded. "It just might."

While he was awaiting an answer on the phone, Arthur had failed to notice that Alfred left the room. He figured it had something to do with the conversation that could be heard from the other room.

Matthew led Arthur into a room with a single desk and an office chair, a simple laptop computer sitting on the desk.

"What do you want to try to find?" Matthew sat down in the chair and opened the computer. He keyed in a password and the desktop began to load.

Arthur thought for a moment. Perhaps, he had been here for a while longer than he thought. Maybe he just didn't remember any of it.

"Search my name. My full name."

Matthew gave him a confused look but nonetheless entered _Arthur _into the search bar. He gave Arthur sideward glance, waiting for confirmation.

"Kirkland." Arthur supplied.

Matthew nodded mutely and entered the full name, and they waited for the page to load.

Eventually it did, and what it showed wasn't exactly what Arthur had been expecting.

"_Sixteen year old Arthur Kirkland found dead in his own bedroom."_

USUKUS

**AN: Oh hello. Yes I'm the smartass who decided to write a fanfiction at the beginning of a school year.**

**Kill me.**

**Anyway. This is my first (what I consider my first) attempt at sharing a fic online. I'm not trying to write one of those, "Hoogha so scary what's happening." fics. But I am trying to make it sad, so bear with me here. It is inspired by the song Little Talks, which I highly recommend if you haven't heard it yet. It is rated M because I like my stories lemon scented.**

**Until next time.**


	2. I'll Walk with You

**Welcome.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this fanfiction, or the song that inspired it.**

**REVIEWS**

**Sora Resi: Indeed it was cliffie! Mysterious is just what I'm aiming for. **

**James: Yesyesyesyesyes! You'll just need to wait and see, mon ami. Though unfortunately, you won't get the whole truth for a while. There will, however, be hints along the way!**

**USUKUSUK**

"_Sixteen year old Arthur Kirkland found dead in his own bedroom."_

Matthew's eyes widened only slightly. He gave Arthur a sidelong glance, and the Brit wore an indiscernible expression on his face. Arthur had leaned in close to quint at the results, as if he was having trouble seeing the screen's contents from a short distance away. Matthew noted Arthur's tense breathing and the peacemaker in him forced him to react accordingly.

"It's probably just a coincidence, I bet there's more than one Arthur Kirkland." he reassured, glancing again at the search results. The more he read into the descriptions, the less coincidental it was becoming. His eyes scanned the words beneath the titled links, alighting and widening.

Arthur made a breathless sound in his throat and cleared it.

"Yes," he breathed, "you're right. Just... keep scrolling down." Arthur's tone remained even. He mentally shook himself and leaned closer to the laptop, nearly peeking over Matthew's shoulder in the process.

The taller blonde nodded, scrolling down the page and passing numerous articles about the supposed incident. Gruesome details floated upward and into dismissal as Matthew scrolled down, looking for anything less morbid and more useful, something that wouldn't completely wreck Arthur's stability. He could clearly remember hearing this exact story, from somewhere.

This was blasted to bits when Matthew abruptly halted his downward scrolling at the sight of unruly blonde hair and humongous eyebrows on the screen. One of the articles also featured a picture, and every exposition after that doing the same. It was certainly a picture of the very Arthur that was leaning into the words less than a foot away from Matthew. He heard Arthur's breath hitch and sensed him move even closer yet to the glowing screen, putting one of his hands on the back of the swivel chair possibly to steady himself.

"Click that one." he said weakly, making it sound more like a question than a command.

Matthew nodded and moved the cursor to the link, clicking it and beginning another loading session. It took a thankfully long while for the awaited information to load, for Arthur longer moments to breathe shortly and unevenly as he waited.

Finally the picture of Arthur appeared again. He was smiling, but it didn't look genuine. It was a sardonic grin, one filled with contrast and reluctance. Arthur appeared younger, but not by much. He was wearing a black T-shirt, its print indistinguishable as the picture ended abruptly near its beginnings. _"Grieving mother discovers lifeless son in his own bedroom,"_

Arthur tensed and Matthew visibly jumped when the door behind them slowly creaked open. Matthew turned, seeing his brother's head peeking into the office room with an observation of question in his eyes, flicking them between the frozen Arthur and his obviously panicked brother. Matthew shook his head acutely and kept sight of Arthur for some kind of reaction. He wondered what it would be, as something like this didn't exactly have an expected reaction, nor was it a commonly rational one.

Arthur was still reading through the information.

"_-implications of bruises along the neckline. Victim clearly struggled-"_

He audibly gulped and raised his hand to rub along his throat, squeezing slightly and wincing. Not in pain, though, but in bewilderment. No bruises.

"_-lacerations around face, clotted by the time the body was discovered-"_

Matthew shut the laptop abruptly, its hum taking longer than its light did to shut down and permeate the room in disparaging silence. He couldn't stand to see any more of this, it was all too surreal.

"Arthur?" Matthew said, and nothing else as that posed as enough of a question in itself. Alfred approached with a worried expression, although he still had no idea what was so shocking.

Arthur didn't say anything for a long time and only gazed at where the little screen used to be glowing with false implications. He heard Matthew say something, but he didn't know what, too lost in his own condescending thought.

"-rthur?"

Arthur stepped out of his bitter epiphany, finding himself looking into four worried blue eyes.

"Yes?" he replied, removing his hand from around his throat.

"Are you..." Matthew hesitated with an air of uncertainty, "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Arthur snapped, without bitterness but with swiftness, "fine." he repeated, breathing in and out with a slow, unstable sort of rhythm.

"It was, well, it must have been. A coincidence, I mean. It was just a coincidence." Arthur reassured, himself more than anyone else. "Because I'm right here."

Matthew nodded slowly at first, then sped up the movement and smiled with unsure relief. "Yeah," he tried to agree, "yeah, you are."

Arthur hadn't quite convinced himself yet, and he let his eyes wander back to the laptop, sitting innocently on the desk, closed and waiting. He had a glazed over light in his eyes, and just stared at the machine as it did nothing but sat stationary.

"I think- well, that is, I just don't remember something. I don't know what it was, but I feel like I'm just missing something. I feel like I've been here for, perhaps, a short while longer than I would have first guessed." Arthur explained, being unclear with a foggy mindset. "What is the day?"

"It's July 6." Alfred chimed in, trying to be the slightest bit helpful even though he hadn't the slightest idea of what was happening.

Arthur grinned wanly. "Yes, I recall the day I last remember at home. It was mid-June. There was a rare heat wave at the time, and I felt restless going to sleep that night because I couldn't concentrate through the temperature. Now, the problem is, I don't remember anything from then to now."

He just wished he knew how he ended up crossing the Atlantic Ocean within a small span of time.

"But Arthur," Matthew said slowly. "the picture." he nodded to the closed laptop, quirking an eyebrow and silently inquiring his questions. "That was you."

There was a brief flash of uncertain terror in Arthur's eyes for a moment, but it was quickly diminished when the younger of the two brothers spoke up.

"What is it?" Alfred asked, completely oblivious to the drowning tension that had settled in the slowly dimming room. He didn't mean to interrupt, he just couldn't stand having no idea what was going on. The look on Arthur's face was clearly signaling that something was wrong, and Matthew was just indiscernible.

Arthur darted his eyes to Alfred, still in the same wide and shell-shocked state. Matthew gave his brother an imploring look but otherwise didn't say anything. At both of their stares, Alfred began to feel uncomfortable. "Never mind." he mumbled, retracing his steps and stalking out of the room. Clearly, he wasn't being of any help at the moment. It wasn't the first time people hadn't taken him seriously.

Matthew sighed and turned back to Arthur who was still staring at the door. "Hey," he said, "are you sure there aren't any more numbers we can try?"

Arthur came back to reality and thought for a moment. "I... I would, if I remembered. I had only memorized the one, the rest were just in my contacts." Matthew nodded, biting his lip in a nervous habit.

He hesitated a moment, before asking, "What do you want to do, then?"

"I don't know," Arthur answered honestly, "I have no-"

"_Matthew!"_ came a shrill cry from somewhere else inside the house, the voice of a woman. Matthew instantly stood from the office chair, apologizing to Arthur and saying that he'd be back momentarily. He blindly shut the door behind him in his pseudo jog, his footsteps sounding on the hardwood floor outside until they trailed away to somewhere else in the house.

Arthur, winded and just plain ruffled, took Matthew's place in the plush office chair. He sighed into his hands and rubbed at his eyes, still tired from the unexpected awakening he received that morning. He absentmindedly did half-spins in the chair, only to remedy his thoughts and relax himself.

Matthew reappeared moments later, his younger brother in tow with a falsely bored look marring his face. Arthur didn't notice her at first, but a third person followed behind the boys, a kind, if slightly confused smile stretching across her lips. She was shorter than the boys, with soft blue eyes and bouncing blonde hair.

She gave him a quizzical grin, then smiled wider. "Hi!" the woman chirped.

"Hello," Arthur said politely from his perch on the office chair, "um."

"Ms. Jones, Al and Matt's mom," she supplied, brushing a strand of short blonde hair from her face and securing it behind a red clip. "or Amelia, whatever you want. So, I heard you're in a pickle."

Arthur quirked an eyebrow in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"I heard you have a problem."

"Ah..." he said, unsure if he should confirm or not. He didn't want to trouble anymore people than he had to. Then again, she didn't seem like she was the type of person to mind much. "Yes."

"Great! So you need a place to stay!"

"Uh, wait," Arthur tensed up, slowly shaking his head, "I couldn't ask that of you, and I still-"

"I won't take no for an answer!" Amelia practically squealed, sauntering over to the uncomfortable Brit and beaming. Matthew offered Arthur an apologetic smile from behind his mother, adjusting his glasses and saying _I know she's a handful _through his violet-blue eyes. Alfred just looked uncomfortable and embarrassed, like he would rather be anywhere than right there in that room. Ms. Jones ruffled Arthur's hair and continued to smile brightly. It was like the woman radiated sunshine and American hospitality. She waited, beaming, for an answer from Arthur, her smile warming him yet making him extremely uncomfortable at the same time.

"Er, I suppose, but not for long." Arthur relented, dipping his head and glancing at the wall to his side in discomfort.

"Great!" Amelia stood straighter, clapping her hands together once and keeping them there.

Arthur nodded mutely, shifting his eyes to gaze at the closed laptop near his side. It was tempting, so tempting to open it again and read more of that page. There was, however, a firm feeling inside him not to let his curiosity get the best of him. He thought about it briefly, before smiling wryly.

_That couldn't have been me._

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As the days began to pass, Arthur hardly realized he was forgetting about his problem all together. It simply did not occur to him that he had yet to contact his family, and that they very well may have been worrying themselves into a frenzy. It was hard to even hear yourself think when faced with possibly the most excitable family in existence, excluding Matthew. The boy was the same age as Arthur, and the two of them got along quite nicely. They were polite to each other, despite Matthew's surely present suspicions toward the Brit. Matthew was patient enough to handle his endless complaints, and for that Arthur was grateful, as it was quite unpleasant to be hated simply because of a sour temper.

Alfred, on the other hand, was somewhat of a handful. He was rambunctious, loud, and he made a mess of nearly everything. As expected, Arthur wasn't all that fond of these attributes. It wasn't a surprise as the all-American boy was two years younger than Alfred, therefore viewed as somewhat of an irritating brat in Arthur's eyes. He had a hero complex as well, which was admittedly rather strange, although Arthur didn't bother to question it. For as loud as he was, it was shocking that Arthur hardly left the house. He spent most of his time glued to a computer screen wearing headphones and muttering things to himself as he battled with the colorful controller in his hands, sparingly letting out an irritated curse he thought no one could hear. The younger teen was normally concealed within the confines of his room, only causing a ruckus when he went outside to raid the pantry of a third of its contents. He was, however, a very sunny boy. He was clearly an optimist, and it was obvious that he tried to hide his sweet side under a strong facade of heroics and teasing remarks. Alfred, at the moment, was Arthur's least favorite, apart from his rare bouts of decency.

So shopping for clothes with the boy was the last thing Arthur wanted to be doing, still, he couldn't refuse it if Amelia offered the money to do so.

"Why are you buying a sweater in the middle of July?" Alfred eyed the fuzzy garments hanging on the clothing rack, swaying heavily with the gust of air conditioning in the small shop.

Arthur hummed as he sifted through the sewn fabric, deigning whether they were worthy to wear or not. "Because I like them." he replied, simpering for a moment and picking out a fluffy green sweater vest and a tan cardigan, along with two thin, white button-downs to wear underneath.

"Well, just don't complain when you're dying of heat." Alfred muttered, wandering somewhere else in the recesses of clothing, presumably to the cartoon printed T-shirts.

Arthur shrugged to himself, abandoning the younger teen and making his way to the check-out counter to pay for his findings. He gently laid them down onto the flat surface, offering the cashier a polite greeting and a half-smile.

The man at the counter nodded and glanced up at Arthur, then proceeded to type commands into the keyboard with a bored expression. He looked at Arthur again, about to tell the amount of money due, then appeared to do a double take. The man had quirked an eyebrow in what appeared to be confused concentration.

"Uh." he said, still looking at Arthur.

Arthur only blinked confusedly, tilting his head stupidly without realizing he was doing so.

The man shook his head and announced the price, mumbling to himself.

"Sorry, you sort'a looked like someone I saw on TV a while ago." he seemed embarrassed as he gathered Arthur's change and printed a receipt, handing them to Arthur.

"No, it's fine." Arthur said and gathered his shopping, dismissing the strange man and finding his way back into the clothing section to retrieve Alfred so they could leave.

After much searching, Arthur found that Alfred was no longer in the clothing section. He sighed to himself as he began to search for the bespectacled boy. It was times like this that he wished he had his cell phone, not that Alfred had one either, but the reassurance would have fit nicely in his pocket.

The boy was rather reluctant to go shopping with Arthur, but Amelia had insisted that someone accompany him, and Matthew was already out at the moment. He had been borrowing Matthew's clothes for the past few days, and, he was reluctant to say, that they were large to the point of being uncomfortable. The Canadian (as Arthur had learned he was not American, though he didn't know the story behind it) was actually a lot larger than he looked, about the same size as Alfred. It was strange to Arthur that Alfred was younger, yet he was taller, more muscular than him. It almost unnerved him, how short he felt in that house, though Matthew made up for it with his soft-spoken attitude. Alfred seemed to have abnormal strength, which was especially surprising because he ate as much as five pigs did in a week within the span of one day. He didn't exercise much except for lazy saunters down the stairs and to the fridge, as he simply found it too difficult to pause a zombie-killing spree and do much of anything else.

Arthur found him in one of the toy aisles, of all places. It wasn't actually the toys he was looking at though, he was gazing longingly at the poster display. As Arthur approached behind, Alfred either didn't notice or didn't bother acknowledging his presence. He was carding through a selected section of superhero posters, eying all of them with aspiration.

It was when Arthur stopped beside him that Alfred visibly jumped, apparently just now noticing the Brit. Arthur snorted.

"I used to have something like this in my room. A poster, I mean. It was of two unicorns mating."

Alfred whipped his head around and gave Arthur the most weirded-out expression he could manage. "What?"

"Two unicorns. Mating. I had the same shirt, too." Arthur gave Alfred one of his rare wan smiles and turned on his heel, beckoning Alfred to follow. Alfred blinked, furrowed an eyebrow and stuffed his hands rather uncomfortably in the small pockets of his jeans, following behind Arthur and giving him an irritated glare.

He was not very fond of Arthur, and he knew the sentiment was likewise. The Brit had been polite at first, which was all just fine and dandy, but his politeness had steadily turned into a sort of sarcastic demeanor, and to Alfred this was thoroughly unpleasant. Half the time he couldn't even tell what Arthur was talking about, he always used funny words that Alfred was sure didn't have a spot in any dictionary he'd ever heard of. He somehow managed to remain polite even while subtly insulting the American, and he did it with the most infuriating smugness the American had ever seen. Why was this guy staying at his house, anyway? He never got the memo.

Arthur glanced back at the younger and simpered, leaving the store and showing him into the smiling July sun he would much rather be hiding from.

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Matthew awoke to the burning stench of smoke, stinging his lungs and staining the house putrid and foul. He scurried out of bed, tripping over his duvet on the way out of his room, thus dragging it halfway outside his bedroom door, and hopping on one foot as he realized with horror that his other foot was asleep. He bolted down the small flight of stairs, ignoring the flighty feeling of liquid static permeating his entire leg as his senses drove madly for the source of the smoke; the expected house fire.

He crashed into the counter as he stumbled through the doorway into the kitchen, landing on cool tiles with a jab at his own clumsiness. The heartless floor seemed to mock him in its own way.

"Are you alright?"

Matthew turned and his eyes found a wide-eyed Arthur staring down at him in slight concern, standing in front of the stove as an ominous black smoke rose from the surface and permeated the air. He held the handle of a frying pan in his hand, looking like he was in the process of flipping something over with a spatula before Matthew came bursting in. The Canadian also noted that he was wearing his mother's pink frilly apron, as if it were completely normal to do so.

"Huh- the- ha- uh, what's?" Matthew stuttered incoherently, still trying to gauge what the hell was happening.

Arthur blinked. "I'm making pancakes." he then turned back to the stove and took a plastic spatula from the shelf, then began to chisel away at something in the pan. Eventually there was a snapping sound and what appeared to be a hockey puck sat on the poor spatula. Arthur set it back into the pan upside-down, creating another putrid cloud of toxic smoke. The Brit smiled at his demonic creation, and deposited it onto a plate with a sharp _clink_.

There was a loud crash from upstairs, presumably Alfred waking to the same disgusting smell Matthew had. He sighed.

"Do you like yours with jam?" Arthur inquired, setting the plate aside and turning the burner off, leaving the other "pancakes" to blacken even more, if that was possible.

Matthew felt his eye twitch slightly, then finally he stood, observing that there was in fact more than one hockey puck sitting on his stove. "Syrup," he swallowed thickly in fear for his life, "a lot of syrup."

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Arthur felt his stomach grow flighty as his hand landed on the cool door knob. He gulped audibly, peeked behind himself one more time, and turned the handle. Could one even blame him for being curious? His eyes fell upon the closed laptop, a white light blinking on the front, signaling that it was on, just not in use. He let out a shaky sigh and proceeded, landing himself in the office chair before the cheap desk. Arthur felt his anxiety reach new heights as he opened the screen, ready to finally find out the truth, perhaps even contact his family. Throughout the days, he had started to realize how strangely these people were behaving. Stranger though, he realized that he had actually forgotten about finding his way home. He was sure it would take a while, and that he certainly wouldn't be able to home right away. Still, he told himself, he'd like to contact his family somehow. He continued to tell himself so, yet at the same time, he was infinitely interested about the peculiar article he had seen with Matthew. Yes, it was also strange that the Canadian had yet to mention such a thing again.

Arthur's eyes alighted in excitement when the screen lit up in blue. His enthusiasm fell when he realized he would need a password. The space sat on the screen, blank, and staring him in the face, judging him. He ogled at the blinking cursor glumly for a moment, then, he nearly jumped from his skin for the second time in that office.

The door behind him slid open, and a curious head peeked in. Arthur spun around with a nervous _I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't _grin plastered onto his face. His eyes found Alfred, who quirked an eyebrow and corrected his glasses upon his nose.

"What are you doing?" he asked, glancing at the open laptop.

"Nothing!" Arthur chirped, sounding far too high-pitched to be considered normal. He quickly shut the laptop and stood with high speed, striding out of the room and pushing past Alfred on the way out. Alfred heard the Brit's resounding footsteps fade, hurrying up the short stairs and escaping into his makeshift guest room.

All he did was scratch his head in an unflattering way, showing his confusion to no one but himself. He gave up and strolled into the kitchen, yanking open the fridge for a snack with a lopsided grin and an involuntary twitch of his cowlick.

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Arthur poked idly at the yolk on his plate, bursting it and watching without interest as it bled out onto the white china. He nibbled at the bacon and watched the family of three chatter from under his fringe, talking about this and that, things like school starting in a few months and Matthew reminiscing on one of his recent outings. Alfred, for the most part, just scarfed down his plate while saying unintelligible things that were mostly ignored.

His eyes landed on Matthew. The soft-spoken boy kept his eyes on his mother. She laughed at whatever he was saying, softly giggling and crinkling her eyes. The boy's eyes flickered over to Arthur for a moment, and what happened next piqued the Brit's interest.

Matthew glanced at Arthur, but was, for some reason, unable to look him in the eyes. His shoulders seemed to hunch uncomfortably, and his eyes darted to somewhere else in the room, somewhere that wasn't a person. Guilt, a feeling that was nearly impossible to find in an expression, was showing clearly in Matthew's face. Arthur looked away, gaining nothing but suspicions.

Alfred stopped chewing like a maniac for a single moment, slowing down and stopping. From his angle, he could see that Arthur was clearly giving Matthew a very slight, but accusing glare. Even more concerning, his brother looked away in guilt. Arthur then looked away as well, losing his glare and only acquiring a single frame of what, from his angle, looked like the beginnings of fear.

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Alfred gave the white, wooden door two sharp little knocks, loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to be considered rude.

"Coming!" came the voice from inside, then a faint rustling and finally a set of lazy footfalls.

Arthur opened the door, eyes lifting to Alfred. Arthur immediately had the urge to shut the door again, but the look on the American's face kept him from doing so.

For a long moment, the younger said nothing, then, his eyes scanned the hallway and he leaned down to whisper, "I checked your browser history."

Arthur's face scrunched up slightly in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"The laptop downstairs, I checked the browser history."

Slowly, realization dawned upon Arthur. He began to nod before he felt himself being bodily pulled into the hallway by Alfred, who had forcibly gripped his cardigan sleeve and dragged him away.

"What are you- oy!" Arthur protested as he was nearly thrown into a dimly lit bedroom that smelled of snack foods and sweets. Alfred rummaged around under a bed, presumably his own (it was horribly unkempt if that was any indication), grumbling nonsense words to himself as he did so.

Alfred produced a small laptop from under the bed, opening it to a black screen. He cursed, moving to the bedside table to find a charger.

As he rummaged, Arthur considered just leaving the room, before Alfred began to speak.

"Why do you think you haven't talked to your family yet?" he said, trying to sound nonchalant but clearly falsifying himself. It was like sympathetic sarcasm.

"I... I don't-" before he could finish, Alfred whooped, holding up a black cord and connecting it into the outlet and the socket of his laptop.

"I'd use my computer," the younger teen gestured to a large, expensive desktop in the corner of his room, "but I don't want Matt to see. He doesn't know I still have this."

The small notebook blinked to life, displaying a password input screen that Alfred solved without delay. He opened a browser and waited for it to load, giving Arthur a sidelong glance as he was still stood in the door frame.

"What's...?" Arthur questioned without words, stepping over a discarded pile of clothing and standing beside a crouching Alfred.

The browser loaded and Alfred began to type on the miniscule keyboard. Arthur leaned closer to see, lowering himself to Alfred's current height and practically sitting on the filthy floor.

His eyes widened as the words took shape, staring him in the face as he ogled back at them. _Arthur Kirkland suicide._

Arthur shuddered, though he didn't know why. He twitched involuntarily when he felt a hand wrap around his wrist.

"You're gonna want to sit down for this one." Alfred said, clicking the first link that displayed Arthur's dull picture and an article. Arthur gulped loudly as if he were in a children's cartoon and sat down, not minding the dirty floor in favor of reading the words displayed before him.

The article, in all its truth, didn't say anything different from what he had read on his first day in the house. Out of everything so far, his picture was the most chilling thing, the way his scowl just begged someone to challenge him, to _pay attention_.

Arthur vaguely noticed the hold tighten on his wrist as a new paragraph appeared, the one he was not able to see earlier.

"_It was concluded that it was not a murder, but in fact, a case of suicide."_

Arthur's breathing became unsteady.

"_Grieving over the loss of her youngest son, Alice Kirkland, mother, promptly followed after her son, committing suicide 3 weeks after. Since then, her husband and her other sons have been missing. No news of their whereabouts is available as of yet."_

Arthur did the same thing Matthew did and slammed the poor laptop shut, breathing in a panicked fashion.

Alfred let go of him and moved aside, trying to get a look at Arthur's face, hidden under a fringe of sandy blonde hair. What he found didn't surprise him, but it wasn't necessarily a pleasant expression. His green eyes were wide, probably as wide as they could go, his jaw tense, and his nostrils flared as if he had smelled something unpleasant.

For a while there was terse silence, before Alfred awkwardly interjected.

"I'm guessing you don't remember anything?"

Arthur swallowed and nodded, then stood, as if in a trance, and left the room.

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**AN: Hello, again!**

**I like to write cliffhangers, but I hate to read them. That's my new motto. Mmhm.**

**If you are wondering about ages, Arthur is 16, Alfred is 14, and Matthew is 16. If I were to guess what part of the states they were in, I'd say somewhere not as well known. Definitely the 'burbs. **

**Also, if I get any of Arthur's speech wrong and don't use correct British terms, I'm sorry! I'm American! I do try my best, though!**

**This whole mess is going to be progressive, you won't get all the answers in the next chapter or anything. I'm going to be giving out some subtle yet dynamic hints along the way, until we reach the breaking point, in which shit hits the fan. Cheers.**

**Until next time.**


	3. My Dear

**Welcome.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this fanfiction, or the song that inspired it.**

**The end of this chapter is much better than the beginning.**

**REVIEWS**

**Sora Resi: Yes, yes it was. :) Oh- goodness me. (runs to go find it) Thank you!**

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Soon after Arthur had left the room, taking with him an aura of intense hopelessness, Alfred followed after him, unsure. He toed down the hall, shuffling on the beige carpet and making his way past Matthew's room and his mother's. At the end of the hall was the guest bedroom, with the door shut, unlike the others lining the walls. Quietly, Alfred stopped in front of it, taking the house's current silence to his advantage. He leaned on the door and listened for any sort of sound.

Nothing but a few whimpers and sniffles came from within. Alfred shifted slightly, flinching as the floor creaked. There came shuffling from within, lasting for only a few seconds, and hushed silence.

Puffing up his cheeks in exasperation, the young teen left Arthur to himself, a reluctant stab of pity burying itself in his gut.

Of course he remembered this, it was all over the news when it happened. Matthew had, of course, paid more in depth attention to the incident, though it wasn't as if Alfred was unaware. He knew some English guy killed himself, that it was pretty brutal, and that his family pretty much disappeared from existence. And now, for some reason, that same guy was holed up in his house because his mother was too nice for her own good. Not that Matt had told her anything either. She was completely clueless, he had probably given her some fake story about a family feud. If she had known she would have done something more than just letting him crash.

Alfred trudged back to his room, mood completely dampened in a strange maze of perplexity. If that truly had happened, and he was certain that it had, then what was up with Arthur randomly showing up down the street from his house? He was supposed to be dead. Arthur was supposed to be dead. Alfred shuddered, putting it in the back of his mind as he fell ungracefully onto his bed, readying himself for some much-needed shut-eye.

That is, he tried to. Before the sniffling and rustling started again.

Alfred rolled over and sighed. He had a thing or two to say to his brother when he got home.

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Arthur collapsed onto his temporary bed, burying his head into his pillow and nuzzling, smelling the detergent and letting it catch his bitter tears. His hands balled into fists, clenching and unclenching at the duvet as he tried to halt his weeping.

Of course, he had no reason to be crying. No, no, of course not, because none of that happened to _him. He _was right _here. _It was a mistake, a mistake, a mistake, yes. What other explanation could there be? Yet still, he wept, trying to silence himself, wielding his sadness to only himself and no one else. He began to curl in on himself, resting on his side, shoulders shaking, trembling.

Blearily, he heard a scrape on the wood of his door.

He hiccuped, keeping quiet for a moment, forcing his entire body still, not even breathing. There was the sound of stiff footfalls treading away, slowly, hesitatingly. A door shut, and Arthur sighed shakily. His tears had stopped, but now he was in the stage of huffing, the way he always did after he cried. Not that he did so often, mind you. It just... always happened, yes.

Arthur shut his eyes tight, squeezing out the last of his salty tears, leaving cloudy, sticky trails down his face. He slowed his breathing and sat up, unbuttoning his brown cardigan sweater and tossing it somewhere in the room, staying in his white button-up and jeans.

Arthur moved under the covers, snuggling into their comforting warmth, huffing, trying to slow his breaths by just a fraction so he could get a bit of rest. His breathing became louder in the process, but he was eventually able to quell his racing heart, curling so that his face was partially hidden by the thick duvet.

Only the melancholy in his mind sang him to sleep, repeating things like, _that was me_, or, _but I don't remember any of that_, and, perhaps, a small bit of spite for the world itself.

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Matthew shut the door behind himself, remembering to lock it and stumble out of his shoes, not bothering to untie them. He plopped down onto the sofa near the door, pulling out his mobile phone and sliding it open, eyes scanning nonchalantly for messages.

He heard a door shut softly upstairs, and the sound of someone moving down the hall, stopping, and then slightly quicker footsteps striding to the small set of stairs.

Alfred appeared, sliding slightly on the wood at the bottom of the stairs. Matthew went back to his phone, toying with the keys as the internet connection loaded. He almost stood to go elsewhere, as he didn't want to witness his brother emptying the fridge into his stomach, but his phone was snatched away from his hands.

He blinked and darted his eyes upward, meeting his brother's clearly miffed glare. Alfred pocketed the phone and, after a stretched and angry quiet, plucked harshly at Matthew's odd cowlick.

"Ow- Al!" he complained, smacking his brother's hand away and standing up.

"What the hell, Matt?" Alfred grumbled, staying quiet and hushed, continuously firing his glare toward Matthew.

"Why are you whispering?" Matthew exclaimed, standing to full height yet still being an inch or two shorter.

Alfred drew down his eyebrows and pointed up the stairs, yanking his brother's shirt and dragging him away from the direct descent of the stairs. "Because-" Matthew broke away from his brother's hold and glared right back, albeit meekly. "Because, Dude, just- what the hell!"

"You're going to need to say more than that for me to know what you're mad about." Matthew dead-panned.

"He was, like, bawling for a freakin' hour!" Alfred waved his hands around in failed emphasis, then pointed at Matthew rudely. "'Cause you, you just, I mean, gah! Tell him earlier or something, I dunno!"

Matthew nodded slowly, realization dawning upon him as he listened to Alfred ramblings. His brother always got like this when he was flustered, making about an inch of sense in total, and spouting out his frustrations incoherently. It was usually pretty amusing, and he had started to understand the so-called angry-Alfred speak. He then focused on what Alfred was saying, and cut him short.

"Wait," he held up a hand, "you told him."

"Well- well, yeah! I mean, what, were we just gonna, like, keep him here _forever_ I mean that's _weird_-"

"Alfred."

"What?" Alfred said, exasperated.

"You told him?"

"Yes!"

At that, Matthew groaned.

"Oh you stupid _hoser_!"

"I'm not the one who didn't tell him what happened! I mean, the poor guy's just been in there crying! You could hear it through the whole house! Maybe, if he, I don't know, knew what happened earlier, it would have been better!"

"Alfred, you know as well as I do, this is not normal." Matthew said, quieting his voice to its usual octave. There was a slight bump from upstairs, and then, nothing. "I don't think it's the same Arthur. Do you have some other explanation? I'd love to hear it. What I'm saying is, there was no need to make him know all that. He's probably a lot worse off than he would have been if we just didn't tell him."

Matthew sighed, frustrated. "Besides, all of that happened _before _the month he can't remember. It's not the same Arthur, it can't be."

Alfred ran a hand through his hair, cooling down his temper a bit. He pulled Matthew's phone from his pocket and tossed it onto the table, not sure why he snatched it in the first place. He wasn't convinced, not at all, but... Matthew did have a point. Still, the incidents did happen, and that had to be their Arthur in the pictures. Nothing was making sense.

Alfred thought for a moment, and finally offered a snotty 'whatever' to his brother, leaving him alone in the living room as he trudged back upstairs.

He thought he heard a faint shuffling coming from Arthur's room, but quickly dismissed it as his own imagination, plopping into his chair and turning on his desktop computer.

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The next few days found Arthur in a dismal haze, going about his time with an air of aloofness, as well as an aspiring desire to do absolutely nothing. Most of his time was spent either reading or eating, the former he had already made a habit, though the despondent way in which he did so was unsettling.

Arthur was the sort of reader to make faces while he read, the sort to smile softly at a glimmer of humor, or to scowl, perhaps even gasp in a story's peak. But no. He just sat there, on his bed, flipping the pages with unsteady hands as he was propped on the pillow or leaning against the wall, not showing even an ounce of feeling.

There was, however, a particularly interesting day, in which Matthew had been paying him extra mind, and not being discreet about it. He would often stare at the Brit, his eyes glowing with calculations and thoughts, then, he would open his mouth but an inch in, perhaps, an effort to speak, but nothing would ever come out.

It was around lunch time that Matthew finally broke the ice.

Arthur had floated down the stairs on dismal feet, passing Alfred who was absorbed in a game on his hand-held system, and ventured to the pantry in hopes of a less than healthy lunch.

"I can, we- I mean, we can," Matthew began, stumbling over his words with flighty nervousness, "we can, um, call the police?" he made it sound more like a question than a suggestion, but to his credit, he finally got it out of his system.

Arthur turned and gazed at the Canadian with a raised eyebrow. Alfred looked up too, interested.

"Pardon?" Arthur questioned with blatant discontent.

"What I mean is, we can get everything sorted out. I'm just... I mean. Haven't you wondered why we didn't do that sooner? I just, you know, thought you wouldn't want a big fuss and all." Matthew had halted his task of drenching a bowl of vanilla ice cream in maple syrup to speak up. He stared right back at Arthur, only feeling the slightest bit of guilt as he felt that keeping the strange facts a secret were more beneficial than not doing so.

Arthur frowned, "Why would I do that?"

Matthew squared his shoulders and bit his lip, then, he declared in a burst of confidence, "Were you just expecting to stay here or something?"

The statement had started out loud, enforcing, but at the scowl growing on Arthur's face it became meek toward the end, and _forever _had morphed into _or something_.

Thinking for a long minute with massive eyebrows drawn down and doubts racing through his mind, Arthur considered, then, he shut the pantry door with a huff and pocketed his hands.

"What do you want me to do?" he said quietly, giving up. "I wasn't going to, no. I wasn't going to bother you all for long, I was planning on leaving, just, whenever I got the chance to, but how would you expect me to react to something like this?" he finished softly.

"It's not a coincidence, in the article, those were their names. It was referring to me and my family, there's no mistake, things like that don't just happen. I just don't know what's going on, and if you think calling authorities will help somehow, then by all means, I won't stop you." he finished with a glum flourish of his hands and crept away, heading elsewhere inside the house to wish away what was, to him, as a way of coping, a bitter dream he would soon wake from.

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Amelia, much to everyone's chagrin, had insisted that Arthur at least leave his room, or do something other than reading. Arthur wished he knew what the peppy woman thought of him doing so, though he didn't question her motherly instincts, blindly encouraging him to come out of his shell.

Time he spent not wasting away in the confines of the guest bedroom he spent on the sofa or out on the back porch, perched on a delicate porch swing with flower-patterns adorning its cushions. He would sit and read, maybe watch a bit of television, but for the most part, he was just as inactive as he usually was.

This was honestly starting to grate on Matthew's nerves. It had become clearly apparent to everyone that Arthur was dreadfully prone to moping, not that he didn't have a reason to, but a response more than quick, dismissing remarks or perhaps even some little small talk would have been nice. Despite this, he continuously flooded the normally lively household with dull air, bringing everyone down with him into his haze.

Arthur had found his way into the living room, not bothering to go outside with the roaring winds of a summer storm. He was lounging on the sofa in a way that was surely unhealthy for his back, head on the armrest, back on the cushions, and knees bent so that his book was propped up into his legs. He read quietly, listening to the clanging sounds of Ms. Jones doing dishes in the kitchen nearby, vaguely registering the fresh smell of generic dish detergent flooding his senses, and the slight, honeyed sound of a song she was humming.

Flipping the page slowly, Arthur blinked slowly, lazily. Eventually, his slow, relaxed blinking became dozing, and soon, the side of his head was smashed against the backrest of the couch, his book flopped down page-first onto his tummy as he snored quietly, a sound too light to be registered unless one was listening intently.

In his slumber, he did not feel or even acknowledge a shift in the cushions as weight was added. His dream-filled mind vaguely registered a loud yawn, but it quickly ventured back into slumber, in favor of his dreams, riddled with oddity. Arthur turned in his rest so he was completely facing the back of the couch, breathing in nothing but fabric scented softness.

The weight shifted on the couch and left, returning shortly after and plopping down quite dramatically, bouncing slightly after the initial impact.

Arthur curled in on himself, fighting to stay asleep as he blearily registered the television turning on. There was a brief silence, filled with the buzzing of an idle telly, and suddenly, there was a loud roar of sound, the striking noise of people screaming and guns being fired.

Arthur jumped at the rude awakening, eyes snapping open widely and head turning slightly in bewildered question.

Alfred cursed, and quickly shuffled, frantically searching for the remote and clicking the volume down. He breathed a sigh of relief when he did so, the loud uproar now but a droning murmur.

"Sorry!" Alfred said quickly, looking genuinely apologetic.

Arthur only grunted and tried to retrieve his previous position, shifting to get comfortable as Alfred picked up a controller and began to play some overly violent game. The Brit was eventually able to find sleep again, nuzzling into the comforting pillowed sofa, curling his legs increasingly upward. He didn't even bother to move the poor book, still being crushed between his abdomen and the sofa.

This went on for a long while, Arthur sleeping peacefully, Alfred sitting and being too transfixed in his game to notice anything else.

The sun had since left the sky, leaving its shift to make way for the moon and its dark, twinkling light. Growing bored with his current choice of games, Alfred temporarily shut off the console, stood and moved to the cabinet to rifle through it and pick another. As he was doing this, he heard a quiet shift behind him, and then another, and another until they became quite jarring and he looked over his shoulder. Arthur was still asleep, but the way he was doing so was rather concerning. He was still curled up, but he was taut and tense, seeming to want to curl in on himself even more though he did not have the flexibility to do so. He twitched lightly, like an animal dreaming of a chase, and his breath came in short, uneven little rasps.

Alfred concluded that Arthur was having nightmare, though he didn't know what to do about it. Would it be strange of him to wake Arthur? Would he freak out? How does one go about waking a person having a nightmare anyway?

He shook his head and crawled up to the couch where Arthur was sleeping and gave his shoulder a gentle shake. The Brit's eyes did not open and Alfred tsked under his breath. He tried again, adding the smallest bit of pressure.

This time did the trick as Arthur's eyes shot open, a thin layer of cold sweat clinging to his forehead as he quickly sat up, then, slowly, his breathing slowed to a normal rate.

"You okay?" Alfred asked, tempted to shake Arthur's shoulder again as the glaze over his eyes made it look like he was still trapped in the dream.

Arthur blinked sharply, eyes darting to Alfred, who he had apparently not noticed before. "Yes, I am." he said quickly, not wanting to receive concern from Alfred of all people.

Over the span of a few days, pity had wormed its way into Alfred's gut, causing him to understand, or at least, not mind Arthur's behavior. He was, surprising as it was, the most patient sibling when it came to Arthur. So he hesitated only a small measure before asking considerately, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Questioning, Arthur's face went from confused, to horrified, to nervous.

"It's fine if you don't." Alfred quickly reassured, crawling back to the TV and inserting a new game despite it surely being past midnight. He often had these late night gaming sprees in the living room late at night so as to not bother anyone else, and this was the first time he had company. The game started up with a flash of red and a deep voice growling out its title, and Alfred smiled as the red glinted off his glasses in the screen-lit light of the room.

Arthur sat, giving him a calculating look before settling on the couch and, finally, neatly closing his book and setting in on the armrest. He idly watched Alfred play, knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep again that night. His eyes wandered to the ceiling, tracing nonsense shapes as he wondered, just how to begin.

"I don't know." he finally decided upon.

"Hm?" Alfred muttered, sticking out his tongue in concentration.

"I don't even know how describe it." Arthur clarified.

Alfred gave him a sidelong glance and a nonchalant nod, urging him to continue.

"There's just- it's always just so much chatter. It gives me headaches in my sleep and I wake up with them. So many people talking, yelling even, and I can never move, and there are so many lights. I can never focus on the lights, though. They always fly over my head." he was folding his hands together, holding tightly and nervously, biting his lip.

Alfred nodded, showing he was listening. The pace of his game slowed, and he sighed as if he'd been holding his breath.

Arthur had reverted back to silence. Alfred glanced to his left to find him simply sitting there, watching Alfred play with only an ounce of interest.

"Is that all of it?" Alfred questioned as the silence reigned, save for the quiet murmur of the television.

Arthur shook his head. "No, no it's not, but I can't think of the words to explain it properly. It's nothing but this image, I can never tell what's going on."

The older crossed his legs delicately and folded his arms, leaning into the cushions as his eyes faded to half-mast. He blinked slowly, like a tired, old cat. "So... yes, I suppose that is all of it."

Alfred leaned back as well and made in interested humming sound in the back of his throat. Instead of crossing his legs, he stretched them out in front of himself, flexing his toes inside his socks.

"So it keeps happening?"

"Yes."

The American scratched his head in a unflattering way, messing up his hair even more than it already was, tousling it so that every strand mimicked his silly cowlick. He clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

Arthur watched the way Alfred played. His character had quite recently stopped encountering enemies and was wandering listlessly. Presumably, he was stumped. Arthur gave a wan smile and folded his arms tighter around himself, a mannerism that had recently become like a security blanket to him. It made him feel closed, separate. Arthur's sickly smile morphed into a grimace at the thought of such things being so necessary.

A long droning of the television set in for the umpteenth time that night, and Arthur broke it.

"It keeps happening." he repeated, the phrase seeming odd with its timing as this subject had already left Alfred's mind, but it had apparently never left Arthur's. Perhaps it was whirling around in his mind for the longest of days, churning them into poisonous, dark inferences. It was probably haunting him.

Alfred clutched the controller tightly and kicked the wire connecting it to the TV. He careened his eyes to the left and rested them on Arthur, whose shoulders were so tense, hunched over enough that it seemed vexing. His arms were folded into a tight knot, as well as his legs, crossed over each other so tensely that he would soon lose circulation. Arthur was no longer looking at the TV, he was now staring at the carpet and its sandy color, seemingly exploring it with his eyes, but Alfred could tell he was looking at nothing.

He sighed, working up nerve, as he expected the confrontation to be hilariously awkward, and then, he asked, "Are you okay?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Arthur said, not turning his head and feigning a very sought after naivete.

Alfred hesitated, then repeated in a different, more serious tone, "Are you alright?"

And then, there was the breaking point he knew would occur. It had happened a few nights ago, only heard by anyone through the walls. Everything Arthur had been bottling up for the benefit of everyone but himself came pouring out, spilling into his own stability and wrecking it, smashing it to the ground as he choked on his words. "No." Arthur replied simply and put his head into his hands, not making even a sound but the exception of a tiny hiccup. This was it, his arms had unfolded and his legs loosely clenched, but that was okay, because everything was flying, flying into the real unknown and away from the faux stability, his tears soaked through the crevices of his hands and dropped onto the floor, giving it salty wet freckles that were invisible in the television's artificial light. He cried silently, what was visible of his face a panicked pink, brighter than anything else in the room.

Unsure of what exactly to do, Alfred paused his game and moved closer to Arthur shifting the weight in the cushions and making him flinch. The younger, blue-eyed teen hesitated for a long moment and, steeling himself, he merely set an attempt at a comforting hand on Arthur's shoulder.

Arthur's breath hitched, then, he slapped the hand away in a fit of hysterics. Alfred grimaced, considering leaving the Brit to his own devices once again.

That is, before one of Arthur's hands left his face, leaving him partially vulnerable for the naked eye. Instead of using it to push Alfred away even more, he slowly crept it as if it were a limp thing and landing it on Alfred's shirtsleeve, squeezing tightly yet shakily, his hands no longer muffling sounds as he sobbed.

Alfred gazed numbly at this strange person who had been brought into his house so suddenly, he looked into the way he was always so sarcastic, so snippety and aloof, and he realized that it was all a performance. His confident gait was made to hide a softer side, a side like this, the one with emerald green irises peeking from red eyes and crinkling, moistening eyelids, the one with the face so red that it seemed like he had contracted a fever, the one with the dark, dark lines tracing under his eyes, the sleepless nights, the longing for home, the terrible confusion and uncertainty.

In the dark of night, with only a blue, artificial screen as a light source, Arthur's eyes seemed to glow with a real light. A real light that Alfred found, strange as it was, magnificent.

Swallowing thickly, he pulled his arm from Arthur's grip, and instead of abandoning the pitiful Brit, gripped his hand, feeling his dry tears accumulating there. He squeezed, and after a fraction of a second, Arthur squeezed back, his sobs slowly becoming louder, less taut.

He was breaking, but he was fixing himself, all at once.

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**AN: Uhm.**

**Heh.**

**I'm really bad at writing those slightly angry scene-things. Every time I try to do so everyone just ends up sounding like teenage girls. I do love how the last part turned out though. Sort of.**

**(hides under rock)**

**Until next time. **


	4. The Stairs Creak

**Welcome.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this fanfiction, or the song that inspired it.**

**REVIEWS**

**Sora Resi: Yes, the poor dear.**

**Master Espana: There's an apostrophe in there, Sweetcheeks. Thank you anyway, mi... jo. What would be the male alternative? Ah well. See you in school, Sport.**

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Strange as it was, Arthur was indeed able to sleep later that night.

A small bit of time found him heading back to his room with lulling, heavy strides, collapsing onto his bed as if he were dead weight. As his head hit the pillow, his pale blonde hair splaying against the fabric, red-rimmed eyes drifted shut, burning with a tired sting as he did so. As he was unknowingly falling asleep, his first thoughts were of peace. It was as if he had merely lost contact with the pouring rain of a storm, and was instead showered with a calm, lithe drizzle, no thunder, simply dull calm. He didn't know what to think of the feeling.

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On Sunday, the summer storm had all but vanished, only leaving behind a trail of cirrus and the smell of rain in its wake.

Arthur slid open the glass door with a bit of effort and instantly got a whiff of the smell, accentuated with a weak rainbow lurking on the horizon, its colors dazzling against the full blue sky. Despite of himself, he smiled a small smile at the sight and and took small steps to the porch swing, grateful that it had an awning to keep it dry.

The warm sun felt nice. He opened his book, eying the small print and reading in calm silence, listening to the birds sing and bounce. Of course, he could venture back inside and watch television, but it seemed like a wasted effort what with the lovely weather.

Arthur delved into his book, for once enjoying the story.

Through the window, the sound of running water echoed, but stopped soon after. The Brit shifted slightly and balanced the open book on his knee, adjusting to a comfortable position and settling.

He read for a while, content in the sounds of fleeting, sunny summer that was all too new to him. Then, quickly, disappearing as quickly as it came, he felt a ghostly presence brush against his calf. Arthur jumped visibly and looked down to his feet. There was nothing there.

Shrugging to himself, he settled again and flipped a page, doing so with more grace than he had in a while. Perhaps a good cry did a person good, he allowed himself to think. For a while longer he read, eyes widening a fraction at a peak in the story, then, he felt it again.

It was like a smooth scarf, or a single strip of silk was teasing him from under the desk. Scowling, though not enough to emit menace, he closed the book and observed the area more closely. There was still not a sign of anything, not an inkling to be seen. Arthur huffed and set his book aside on the seat. He kicked his legs in frustration, suddenly startling at the feeling of his foot coming into harsh contact with something soft, something that quickly moved away.

Arthur's eyebrows shot up and he leaned down rather uncomfortably, trying to see under the bench while sitting. He failed at that and ended up half-standing, eyes peering under the cool, swelled wood of the swing.

An ickle little thing huddled, it's orange tail curling around its entire body as its ears curled, whiskers twitching in time with them. The small feline, with a patch of orange surrounding one of its dilated eyes, lifted a paw hesitantly. The little thing just looked at Arthur for a moment, doing nothing but gazing with its paw raised, then, it darted away, mewling as it went. It moved in slight, its back paws seemingly more powerful than the front as the kitten darted into the unkempt grass of the household's back yard, hiding away somewhere undiscovered. Arthur considered searching from the creature, but brushed away the urge, assuming that the cat had reason to run. After all, he did kick the poor thing, and kicking cats was a crime that should be punishable by death, no matter how accidental. Arthur simpered and sat on the bench again, flicking through the pages to find his place, falling back into a story.

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It rained again a few days later. This was expected, as August was soon approaching. Still, that didn't mean it made the days any less dreary. There was a single moment in which the sun spoke up, peeping a small ray of light through bulky, stark gray clouds, shining down on a single blade of grass in particular before vanishing. The clouds cried tears that tapped on windows, shuddering houses, quaking trees.

The double glass of the window felt cool against Arthur's hand, and soon, his forehead as he tilted downward. The dream happened again, yet this time, it was different. Not marginally, mind you, but enough so to be noted. It was mostly the same, flying, too bright lights, everything bathed in a sickly white, the voices, saying unintelligible things that could get inside your head and pick at the outer shell, inducing migraines and upsets. It was the same, the same repetitive, obnoxious things whirring around, but oddly, quite near morning, something different happened. Of course, this was usually when the sounds of machinery started, and they did, but now there was another thing. It was so vivid, too, the feeling. The feeling, just the small, sudden feeling of someone tugging at a strand of his hair. Then, he awoke as usual, a bleak, white ceiling offering him a blunt morning greeting and a puzzled aftermath.

Sound was absent from the floor below and he was suddenly missing the clanking of dishes, or rambling of the telly.

He lifted his eyes, actually paying attention to what he was looking at through the window. The view from his room was mostly the backyard, along with the sky. Little puddles dappled the grass and rain pattered against the awning of the porch swing, water streamed down pavement and into soil, bounced from blades of grass back into the air.

A flicker of movement caught his eye.

The swelled porch swing's seat moved, barely a centimeter, then steadied itself, going back, forth, back, forth, until it stopped. Arthur dismissed it as the rain, or perhaps a bird seeking shelter. Then it happened again, the seat began to swing, and steady, swing, and steady. He opened his window to get a better look, the panes groaning as he did so. He stupidly poked his head outside, grimacing at the instant onslaught of rain smacking his face, and leaned down to get a better view of the swing.

There was no one and nothing on top of the seat. Arthur scrunched up his face in confusion, then, when he was just about to move back inside, the white gate of the fence was forced open.

It was hard to tell who the person shouldering open the gate was because they were wearing double layered jackets with a raincoat on top, but the cowlick was a dead give-away even under three hoods, still standing proud in the downpour.

Alfred was holding a rectangular box, its cardboard dotted with rain and sides torn in random patterns. Arthur watched, head still peeping awkwardly from the window, as Alfred moved across the grass, each step making a sticky, muddy splash. He was leaning over the box, appearing as an effort to shield it from falling droplets.

The boy reached the pavement of the patio, shoes making a wet sound against it. Arthur quirked an eyebrow as Alfred knelt down in front of the porch swing that was still quivering oddly. What was even more strange was that the boy even began to talk in a light, relaxed voice despite the pounding rain. Arthur could not hear it from his location, but he knew the American's murmurs were silly, even cutesy, just from the tone of his voice.

Alfred reached under the swing, the sleeves of his several jackets sliding up his arms as he did so. Then, with a smile adorning his face, he pulled a tiny kitten from under the bench, the same one that Arthur had accidentally kicked just a few days ago. Its bright green eyes were wide and its form was shivering, fur sagging and dripping and ears seeming to flop more than normal. Alfred said more silly nonsense words to the cat and gently set it in the box, patting the cats head as he did so. Then, leaning over the box, he reached under the swing once again, this time not smiling, but still talking to something. Arthur leaned out more, wanting to see what else was under the desk. He heard Alfred curse and draw his hand back, then, he sighed loudly and reached under again, quite literally yanking out what looked like a second cat.

This one was just comical, its hair soaked in tufts and actually drooping over his eyes, shielding its vision. It swung its clawed paws in Alfred's direction, yowling as it did so, hissing. This cat was larger and more durable, and, well, it was chubbier. Its large-for-a-kitten paws landed a hit on Alfred's cheek, leaving a scratch. He cursed once again and rudely dropped the agitated feline into the box, standing abruptly and bouncing the full box gently on his knee for balance.

Alfred jogged to the sliding glass door of the house and opened it with the crook of his elbow. Arthur yanked his head back inside the building, shaking droplets out of his hair like a wet dog. He shuddered, warding off the rainy chill.

There was a faint crash from downstairs and a small yelp, then the sound of tiny, pattering footsteps bolting up the stairs. Arthur startled when a large, white ball of fur darted inside his room, vanishing under his bed. Seconds later, heavier footsteps scrambled up the steps. His door, now wide open thanks to a nervous kitten, displayed the hallway. Alfred jogged past, dripping rainwater and holding a hand over his wrist. Although he was moving fast, Arthur did manage to catch a glimpse of red seeping from under his hand, and a nasty gash.

Arthur frowned and got to his feet, kneeling and peering under his bed.

The same white ball of fur from earlier was curled up in the corner near the wall, its white and brown tail swinging in obvious agitation. The fairly large kitten, with its big, starry blue eyes, bristled its fur when it caught sight of Arthur, hissing and seeming to shrink into its little corner. The brown ring of fur circling the feline's collar made this actually look menacing, and Arthur stood, shuddering and grimacing. The cat was clearly upset, but something about it seemed... off. Shrugging to himself and rolling his shoulders to ward off chill, he curiously left the room, passing the bathroom along the way and hearing running water from within. Arthur toed his way down the stairs in his fluffy socks, involuntarily sliding on the slick wooden floor at the bottom. He made his way into the living room and caught sight of the dappled cardboard box that was haphazardly dropped on the floor near the door.

Inside, another kitten sat calmly, albeit a little shaken. It was the same one Arthur had seen, and, well, kicked under the porch swing, its orange patches wet and matted with dirty rainwater.

Hearing Arthur approach, it's folded ears perked up as much as they could and its green button eyes cracked open, whiskers twitching in nervous habit as it gazed up at the big, strange person. The cat blinked once, slowly in the way that cats do, and it stood, stretching its long body. It mewled, a small, sweet sound, hopping over the edge of the box and pattering into the dining room and up the stairs, perhaps to find its eccentric companion.

Arthur followed after, climbing the stairs just in time for the bathroom door to burst open, revealing an angry Alfred with soaked hair and an odd leather jacket coating his shoulders. He was still clutching at his wrist. Arthur frowned.

"Oh, uh." Alfred seemed surprised, as if he had forgotten Arthur existed. "Hey."

"Hey." Arthur said flatly. After a frankly weird silence, the Brit cleared his throat awkwardly, the way the two always seemed to communicate for some reason. "Mind explaining the cats?"

Alfred swallowed and released his arm to nervously scratch his head, revealing an angry red mark on his arm. It was no longer bleeding but it was wet with water.

"They hang out in our backyard." the younger was flushed slightly, and Arthur quirked a large eyebrow. "I let them in when I'm home alone. Or at least the orange one, the other one's kind of an asshole..." Alfred's voice trailed off and he looked away, clutching at his wrist again and wincing.

Arthur's frown deepened. "I can see that. Why do you bring that one in if it bites you?"

Alfred shrugged and puffed out his cheeks in a sigh. "He's cold too." he said simply.

Just then, the noise of something tumbling and falling erupted from Arthur's room. Moments later the orange spotted cat came prancing out, its fuzzy head held high in the air and its tail perked straight up with a slight curve at the tip. Alfred knelt down to the petite fold and held out his hand. "This one likes me, at least." The dappled cat sniffed Alfred's good hand, then nuzzled against him.

Arthur smiled lightly and knelt down as well.

"Do they have names?"

Seeming to hear him, the kitten's ears twitched. It directed its button-green eyes at Arthur's own emerald greens and meowed.

Arthur's smile was infectious and Alfred began to grin as well. "Yeah. The asshole is Burger. This one's Biscuit." he scratched at its folded ears. "They're both boys."

Arthur nodded and reached to pet the small kitten as well, but drew his hand back when it darted behind Alfred and ogled at Arthur with eyes wide as saucers. Biscuit's tail swung back and forth and his fur was standing on end, a clear sign of agitation. Yes, now Arthur certainly wished he hadn't kicked the small feline. He sighed guiltily and folded his arms on top of his bent knees.

"I kicked him the other day."

"What!" Alfred bristled and gave Arthur and incredulous look.

"It was an accident!" Arthur clarified, flushing out of embarrassment and looking at the frightened cat. Biscuit mewled and hid behind Alfred further, and Arthur could have sworn that he was giving him the stink eye.

Alfred gave Arthur a half-hearted glare, then, he faltered and snickered. "How did you manage that?"

Not bothering to acknowledge Alfred's laughter as a mocking gesture, Arthur simpered. "I don't know."

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Later, after Arthur had departed back to his room, Alfred found himself lounging in bed, lost in thought with a warm, spotted kitten resting on his tummy.

Lately, it was becoming extremely apparent to Alfred that it was the little things that mattered, the brownie points in life. Such as the way a television gave darkness blue light, or the way a cat would slowly blink, an affectionate, fleeting gesture that meant so much yet received little to no attention. Much like the way that same, blue light could light up a person's eyes, or the way that bright greens could look so much the same, yet so different on two different beings.

He found it hard to admit it to himself, but as he comforted the skittish kitten whose fur was soft and velvety against his hand, he was reminded of his awkward attempt at comforting a crying Arthur. The thought struck him that he was comparing the soft feeling of a kitten's fur to that of a previously disliked person's hand, and he grimaced.

Although, he didn't dislike Arthur anymore. No, quite the contrary, he was becoming rather fond of him. He didn't know what to think of it.

He thought it was Arthur's smug persona that he didn't like, the way he seemed so full of himself, the way he seemed to mock you just by looking at you. Now, though, it was as if the Brit had received a reality check. It seemed like all of that melted away and only left a shy, introverted person who was, despite being terribly awkward, just a little bit kind. He was beginning to remind Alfred of himself, and well, if he was fond of anyone most in the world, it was himself.

That was not the point though. The point was, he was starting to like Arthur, and a part deep, deep, deeper than anything else in his mind, knew that it wasn't the sort of like that involved friendship. Oh no, he knew his luck better than that. Of course the moment he got even an inkling of a friend that was beyond a cat and a quiet Japanese kid, it was in the form of a ridiculously cute English guy-

_No!_

He knocked his head against the wall and groaned.

In his mind he scolded himself for thinking such things. There were just so many things _wrong _with this train of thought! He'd only known Arthur for a few days short of a month. This was not supposed to happen. Although it wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

Alfred had known that he tended to be... overzealous when it came to people he was even remotely close with. There was one particular incident he had with his friend Kiku, who he felt lucky to still be able to call his best friend after what happened. Since then he'd been more reserved with people, not going out as much and mainly residing in the confines of his bedroom, wasting away and rotting his brain on the stimulative high of video games. It wasn't as though he had completely reclused his life, he did act like this beforehand, but it had just escalated.

That was beside the point. The point was, he was growing attached to someone who was unattainable, two years older than him, technically residing in another country, and, apparently, dead. Yeah, his luck was the worst.

Alfred scratched at Biscuit's ears, picked him up and put him aside, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. Biscuit blinked up at him and mewed, then curled up into a comfortable position, kneading his paws on Alfred's comforter as he dozed.

Alfred smiled fondly at the small kitten and stood, walking out of his bedroom and keeping a hand on his sore arm.

He stood dazedly, trudging out of the room and grumbling his reminiscent thoughts. Elbowing his door open, he stepped into the hall, padding past doors and picture frames hanging on the wall covered in a thin film of dust.

When his foot found the top stair he felt a particular sting hit the bite on his arm and he flinched. Then, when he descended to the second stair, he stumbled, hearing a high pitched yowl tear through the near silent house.

Alfred barely had enough time to notice the white ball of fluff darting away and hissing before he realized what was happening. A tingle of fear settled in his stomach when he saw the stairs quickly, _too_ quickly approach him at top speed and he realized that the damn cat had tripped him. Probably on purpose, too!

Then, when he hit the ground, everything erupted into warm pain, and his vision became fuzzy. He didn't know if it was because he lost his glasses or because he was losing consciousness. The answer soon became apparent, however, when everything faded to pure, quiet black.

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Minutes earlier...

After the small ordeal with the cats, Arthur retreated back to his room and sat on his bed. He contemplated getting a bit of reading in and picked up the book from the end table, shifting to sit cross-legged and putting the book in his lap. He read for a while, almost becoming absorbed in the story but never completely, flipping pages with a grace that had slowly been growing, bit by bit.

After a while, he looked up and yawned, rolling his shoulders and blinking his eyes that stung with a tired feeling. He marked his page with a torn corner of scrap paper and shut it, placing it on the end table once again.

Arthur stood and went to his wardrobe, opening one of the wooden bottom drawers and searching for a pair of sweats to sleep in, shedding his shirt as he did so. It was getting late and moonlight shined in little rays through the window. Stars were visible through the crevices between blinds and they shined equally as bright, but not as courageously as the moon. He changed into the sweats, gray, boring, and scratchy on the outside, and peeled the covers back from his bed.

When his hand was about an inch from the switch of his lamp, his door creaked open and the larger cat from earlier, Burger, peered into his room with steely blue eyes. He yowled, a louder sound than that of Biscuit, and padded into the room. The brown ring of fur around his neck puffed up when he meowed and his ears perked, and the odd little tuft of yellow hair atop his head bounced as well. When Arthur looked at him, Burger shrunk back to the door, hunching down and curling his tail under his tummy. He hissed.

Arthur blinked, surprised at the mood swing, and looked away from the growing kitten.

Burger perked up, standing straight once again and blinking up at Arthur from his spot near the door. He padded into the room, his paws making soft sounds against the plush carpet, and sat at the foot of Arthur's bed.

Arthur risked a second glance at the cat and jumped when Burger bristled.

He looked away once again, a smile threatening to split his face at the cat's childish behavior. Finally he snickered, covering his mouth as he did so.

Burger got on his hind legs and put his front paws on Arthur's bed, meowing once again. Arthur looked at him and he hissed and prickled, but once he looked away Burger just behaved like a normal cat. It was funny to Arthur, but also a bit endearing.

Without looking at him, Arthur cautiously extended his hand out to Burger, who stayed still for a moment. Then, twice as cautious as Arthur had been, he sniffed the Brit's fingers, beginning to knead on the bed covers with clawless paws. Arthur found it strange that this supposedly stray cat had been declawed, but he decided to put it out of his mind. He carefully reached up to stroke at the cat's head, and he purred, leaning up and actually taking the effort to leap onto Arthur's bed.

The Brit smiled and pet the cat, though he found it strange to do so while staring at a wall. Slowly, he swallowed and turned to the cat, whose eyes were closed in bliss. When Burger opened his eyes they seemed to dilate at the sight of Arthur looking at him. He remained stock still for a fraction of a second, then, he darted from the bed and out of the room in a hurry. Arthur sighed in disappointment. He rather like the cat, even if he was, apparently, an arsehole.

Arthur reached for the lamp again, but for the second time he was startled. There was a thump in the hallway, sounding near the stairs, and suddenly, there was a very, very loud crash, accompanied by a groan and tiny retreating footsteps. Burger ran into his room once again and sped under the bed, but Arthur didn't have time to check on him as he was already on his way out the door.

He jogged to the stairs, expecting to see toppled furniture, but instead found a toppled Alfred, lying at the bottom of the stairs and completely unconscious. His glasses were a few feet away from him and his arm was bent uncomfortably underneath him, but the most worrying was the very obvious bump surfacing on the back of his head.

Arthur rushed down the stairs and for the umpteenth time slid on the slick wooden floor. He cursed under his breath and knelt near Alfred.

Then, as quickly as he had come, he left the room in a rush and dashed into the kitchen in search of a land-line phone. He furrowed his brow when he found nothing and ran back into the front room, sliding on the accursed wooden floor that would surely cause an injury some day. He knelt down next to Alfred and turned him over so that he was lying on his back, nearly having a panic attack when he saw blood pouring from the unconscious teen's nose.

Arthur gulped and lightly slapped Alfred's cheek, trying in vain to wake him. He tried shaking his shoulders, flicking him in the forehead (which he berated himself for immediately after), and even tugging at his hair, splayed behind him and stained in a single streak with blood.

Finally, after he got the idea to pull on his funny cowlick, Alfred's eyes cracked open.

"That hurts." he mumbled.

"Sorry!" Arthur said, high-pitched, and flinched his hands away.

Alfred groaned and tried to focus his eyes, failing and seeing nothing but blobs, blurs, and warped colors. He shut them tightly and heard Arthur take in a breath.

"Stay awake!" he heard him say, but it was so hard to, because damn it hurt to be awake right now.

Alfred cracked a single eye open and was met with a blurry, shirtless Arthur that slowly came into focus, all pale skin, green eyes, and skinny torso.

_What a good day_, Alfred thought to himself, before blacking out once again.

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**-blows nose loudly-**

**Urf. Sorry for the delay! I was... preoccupied. With things. Such as anime conventions and babysitting my satanic little brother. That and I beta my seme's fic on the side. It's called _Lost in a Story _and it's USUK, WW2 era. I highly recommend it. It's be great if you checked it out, but don't feel obligated to just because I said so!**

**Anyway. This chapter was cutesy to write until the end, in which I got the genius idea to cause our dynamic duo some pain. Heuhuehueeheu.**

**Until next time.**


	5. As I Sleep

**Welcome.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this fanfiction, or the song that inspired it.**

**REVIEWS**

**Sora Resi: That's awesome! I sort of based his personality off of one of my past cats. I guess the felines think alike, eh?**

**Master Espana: Why thank you! He's a misunderstood lil' guy alright. Huh? … Why would I...?**

**Little Octopus: Wow. Excite. No filtr. Wow. Such review. Thank.**

**LesMiserabbits: Let me just say that I love your name. Why thank you, you have no idea how much that means to me! :D Like seriously, I turn into a psychopath waiting for positive feedback on this thing, it's kind of sad. So thank you x9000!**

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Arthur's heart raced. He swallowed thickly and tried pulling harshly on Alfred's cowlick once again, hoping to see a crack of blue dawn in the boy's eyes, but nothing surfaced and they remained closed.

_Maybe..._

He rushed to the window located only a few feet away and brushed away ugly green curtains, peering outside and finding wet grass, slick pavement, and worst of all, no car. Of course, Arthur didn't have a license in the United States, or even back home really, but he wasn't going to just sit around and let Alfred lay on the cold floor with a possible concussion and a bleeding nose. Arthur chewed on his lip hard for a moment, almost tasting the iron tint of blood, and came up with an idea. He glanced at Alfred then ran upstairs, nearly sliding on the wooden floor but not quite slipping, feet pounding on every carpeted step in a panicked rush and flighty hurry. He darted into his room and threw a shirt back on, cursing himself for taking it off in the first place. Darting down the stairs once again in much more decent attire he skidded on the damn floor once again, stomping on it in anger and kneeling by Alfred once again.

He drew in a deep breath and extended both of his arms downward, folding them under Alfred's arms and heaving him upwards in an attempt to haphazardly drag him somewhere more comfortable than a frigid hardwood floor. Arthur stood shakily, trying with all his might to hold Alfred's ridiculous weight. He grunted and hobbled over to the sofa with uneven footsteps, Alfred's sock-clad feet dragging on the floor and making a low sweeping noise as he was dragged with no grace whatsoever.

As gently as he could, Arthur put Alfred down, careful not to disturb the ugly, blossoming bump forming on his head, visible even through a sheen of sunny, bloody blonde hair. Arthur grimaced when he saw that the American's nose was still leaking blood and he left quickly, then returned with several tissues that he gingerly propped on Alfred's upper lip. He made a disgusted sound and wiped his hands on his sweats despite having nothing on them. Arthur sat on the floor near the couch and simply waited, whether it was for Alfred to wake up or for Matthew to get home, he did not know.

The worried Brit sat for a while, feet tucked under him and knees bent, until that became uncomfortable and he moved to sit with his legs crossed and his cheeks pillowed in his hands, elbows resting on his knees and digging into them.

He sighed, watching the American breathe and wince in his slumber, and, admittedly, he did feel just the slightest bit creepy for doing so, but it wasn't as if he could help it. He was worried, that was it, plain and simple. Worried...

Eventually the task of sitting on the floor distressing over Alfred became vexing and Arthur began to fidget. He stood, but paused when he heard the tiniest sound, a miniscule whimper. Arthur lifted his eyes to Alfred and found him wincing, eyes still shut and wrinkling in pain. Arthur fretted for a moment, wondering what he was supposed to do if Alfred stayed unconscious but became even more pained than before.

Soon his prayers were answered and Alfred's eyes cracked open, the blue barely visible behind his crooked glasses (which Arthur had recovered and gingerly set atop Alfred's nose).

The first thing Alfred saw was the ceiling, white, painted with enigmatic pictures and unfathomable stories, nothing but splotches of foundation to the naked eye. This was all blurry and for a moment he thought he was hallucinating the images, but then his vision came back to him, albeit scarcely, and his eyes landed on only the ordinary ceiling, patterns of white scattered meaninglessly across its plane. He blinked, slowly, dryly, like an old cat, and he sniffed, tasting iron pooling in the back of his mouth and flowing.

Alfred heard someone breathing next to him and he quickly turned his head to see who it was, then he groaned, regretting moving his oversensitive head at all. His eyes focused again and he found Arthur, less then a few inches away from his face, wide-eyed and frowning.

Alfred gulped and wanted to grimace at the feeling of swallowing blood, but he resisted, instead having a miniature panic attack in his mind that mostly consisted of incoherent screaming and _he's so close, oh my god._

Then Alfred's reverie was over and Arthur scooted away, moving backwards and brushing his back against the glass coffee table next to the couch. Had he been sitting in that little space the whole time? Alfred sniffled again and nearly gagged at the taste it brought on.

"Is my nose bleeding?" he croaked, realizing how scratchy his voice sounded, as if he were waking up at four in the morning for some godforsaken reason before the sun had even risen.

"Yes." Arthur nodded, a quaint gesture. Then he cleared his throat in that damn nervous habit, and it was _damn _nervous because why were they always so _awkward _around each other_?_

"Are you alright?"

"Peachy." Alfred dead-panned, clearly sarcastic, not sure if he was referring to his possible concussion or the fact that he found himself wondering when Arthur had put a shirt back on. He would have laughed at his own train of thought had his head not been pounding and burning all at once.

He was caught off guard when he could swear he saw a fraction of a smile cross Arthur's face, but if it was there it disappeared as quickly as it had come, fleeting and hidden. So to compensate, Alfred smiled, despite it being just about the hardest thing to do at that moment. Arthur gave him an odd look and shook his head, dismissing Alfred's weird behavior.

_Smooth move_, Alfred thought, smile straining. He reached up and straightened his glasses with shaken hands. He would have given anything for the floor to just open up and swallow him whole right then, but alas, fate was most definitely not on his side that day... or night, he observed, seeing stars and the moon twinkling outside the window. Where the hell was Matt? He should have been home.

"Where's Matt? What time is it?" Alfred began to sit up and Arthur immediately perked up, scooting closer.

"Oi, stay down!" Arthur ordered, pushing Alfred back down by his shoulder and scowling at the delirious American. "Don't get yourself into a fuss! Anyway, your guess is as good as mine. It's two in the morning..."

Alfred's eyebrows shot up. "It's two in the morning." he repeated.

Arthur nodded with a blank expression.

"And you've just been sitting there the whole time." Alfred clarified, a mischievous grin threatening to split his face.

Then, Arthur's face became dusted in a rosy pink and he scowled. Alfred found it was fun to mess with Arthur's feigned indifference and he began to smile cheekily, but attempting to appear naïve on the outside.

Arthur blanched, contrasting his previous pink cheeks. "It's not like I sat here willingly!"

"Mm-hmm." Alfred hummed, sing-song.

"Would you rather I have left you there on the cold floor?" Arthur scoffed and looked away, regaining his normal complexion and glaring at nothing out of avoidance. Now it was Alfred's turn to flush, and the warmth of his face made him notice the balled tissues blocking the flow of his bleeding nose. Perhaps he should have felt lucky that the Brit hadn't left him laying on the floor, creating a puddle of crimson that was – he craned his neck to look – cleaned from the floor. Well, Arthur had certainly attended to him, at least.

"No." Alfred muttered.

"Hmph." Arthur huffed, crossing his arms. He stood and shuffled elsewhere, socked feet lazily sliding on wooden floorboards and eyes half-lidded, rimmed with dark shadows of exhaustion, gray, exaggerated rings around his eyes. "If you're going to be a git about it then I'm leaving. I was just worried, and yes, I am tired, and I _have _been sitting there for hours, thank you."

Arthur was half up the stairs by the time Alfred spoke up.

"M'sorry."

Coming to a halt, Arthur looked down at the pathetic American huddled on a little couch. He nearly scoffed, almost turned away and just went to bed, but he stopped, hearing a small, airy sound echo through the house. A sniffle. Then another, followed by a hiccup, and then nothing. Alfred had angled his head in just the right position so that the small tear trails striding down his cheeks were not visible in the light of the moon, nor were they easy to see in the first place, drying steadily.

Arthur wasn't sure what to do, and he certainly wasn't sure why Alfred was crying so suddenly. Perhaps the pain of his fall was more severe than originally thought?

Arthur leaned on the railing, grabbing it and leaning forward just so to see the shining, curved lines of Alfred's cheeks.

He stayed quiet for a while, then, he clenched the railing and said, like Alfred had said for him, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah!" Alfred said, chipper, too giddy for it to possibly be natural or good. "Yeah, fine."

Then, stupidly, Alfred sat up and winced, but he didn't mind the dizzy spell. He fixed his glasses and tried getting to his feet, then he wobbled and sat again, putting his head in his hands and sighing quietly.

Arthur was already down the stairs, cursing as he jogged across the floor. He stopped next to Alfred, unable to be in front of him now that he was sitting and taking up the space Arthur occupied a few minutes earlier. Alfred rubbed at his eyes under his glasses, lifting the spectacles from his face and nearly knocking them askew once again.

"What is it?" Arthur asked, bewildered, and in the back of his mind thankful that Alfred had stopped bleeding in time for... whatever _this _was. "What's wrong? You shouldn't try to stand." he worried.

Alfred just shook his head.

"Go to sleep." he merely said. "You can go to bed, I won't move."

When Arthur didn't move and just stood there, Alfred shuddered.

"Please, just..." he said, trailing off and gripping at his hair like a madman, glasses falling and clattering on the floor, still intact.

Arthur hunched his shoulders and became uncomfortable at the strange display. He bit his lip and backed away slowly, then he strode up the stairs, two steps at a time and stiff, dashing into his room and shutting the door.

Once inside, he leaned against the door, hand resting against his racing, palpitating heart. The moment before he left, he had caught a glimpse of Alfred's eyes behind the crevices of his fingers. They were wide, terribly wide, dilated until his pupils were nearly the size of crumbs. Such a wild expression had caught Arthur off guard and sent him racing upstairs, sending him into a fit of shudders. Thinking back, it wasn't so wild. It was the face of someone who had just underwent a horrifying epiphany, a putrid memory, untouched for decades and exploding, bursting and driving one crazy.

It nagged at Arthur's mind and he just stood, his back pressed against the cool, painted wood of his door, cutting through his thin shirt. He took a deep breath and moved forward, sitting on his bed and startling when something moved underneath.

Biscuit came trotting out from under the bed, ogling up at the shaken Brit curiously before mewling and tattering his tiny paws. He swished his tail around then sat, in the tall, lanky way that cats do, and began licking primly at his soft white paws.

Arthur sighed and shifted so that he could move his comforter, slipping underneath it and wrapping it around himself. Burger shuffled upwards, head poking out of the duvet next to Arthur. The Brit didn't dare look at the cat in fear of having his face clawed off, so he resigned himself to scratching the cat's head without eye contact, Burger's purrs a nice lull to the land of sleep.

Arthur tried to curl into the covers more, curling his own body, even, and hiding the majority of his face in blankets.

It was the end of July, beginning of August, a warm, summer night, humid after a salty, showering storm. He should have gotten under the covers, uncomfortable and shifting, but on this night he just felt cold. He wasn't entirely sure why, perhaps it was the ice in Alfred's eyes getting to him. Arthur scratched at Burger's ears some more, then, chilling all too much, he flipped over and grabbed the cat, who made a sound similar to a squeal. This was okay as long as he didn't look him in the eyes, right? Because they were icy, too. They were icy like a blue, four o'clock winter sky. He cuddled the cat close to his chest, feeling the warmth of his fur, closing his eyes tightly and hoping for slumber.

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Later that night, or early the next morning, Arthur woke to the rays of the sun shining in from the window, pure white light descending from the orange-filled sky of early morning. He winced, turning away from the light and putting an arm over his eyes to shield them from the blinding light. Arthur ruffled Burger's fur and the cat was roused from sleep, cold blue eyes not meeting Arthur's as he kneaded on the bed, which was futile without claws, but at least it was comforting.

For a long while Arthur simply stayed in bed with his arm covering his eyes, breathing deeply, inhaling the peaceful bed-ridden morning while it lasted. He wiggled his toes and stretched his legs, sitting up reluctantly with an unpleasant yawn and the cracking of weak, sleeping bones.

Burger hopped down from the bed and meowed, a sweet but ridiculously loud sound, looking at nothing as he padded to the door on soft paws. He meowed again and sat by the door, swishing his fluffy tail back and forth in an obvious invitation.

Arthur grumbled his morning complaints and brushed the covers aside, standing on wobbly legs and steadily shuffling to the door. He turned the knob and Burger darted outside, trotting down the stairs. Biscuit emerged from under Arthur's bed and sauntered out the door as well, flicking his tail delicately as he did so.

Arthur followed after the little fold, watching him patter down the stairs and hop over the last one, twitching his whiskers when he hit the ground. The kitten pranced to the couch and hopped atop it, curling up against one of the plush pillows atop it.

Arthur then came to the realization that Alfred was no longer on the couch and he nearly panicked before catching sight of a torn page from a notebook, sitting under a transparent paperweight and riddled with the messy, smeared scrawl of a ballpoint pen. He knelt down and squinted in an attempt to read the messy writing, scratched with haste onto the lined paper.

All that was written was, _"Took Al to the doc. Be back in a bit. Eat whatever."_

Arthur quirked a messy eyebrow and sighed, standing and yawning lazily as he trudged away to get some reading done. To get the cold blue out of his head. It was strange, he thought, how much you could tell about a person just from their eyes. He briefly wondered how his eyes looked to other people, but shrugged it off, knowing they would be nothing but pallid green.

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The day passed uneventfully, and dreadfully so. There was no word from anybody, no one had come home, there was hardly even any noise from the neighborhood children, and only a small, quiet number of cars had passed through the streets. It was achingly quiet. Arthur had actually managed to finish an entire book within the span of that day, curled up on the couch with whichever cat came and went, although it was usually Burger because Biscuit was still holding a grudge against him.

Arthur blinked tiredly at the television screen, watching the infomercials and advertisements begin and end, phone numbers scrolling through and useless products being shown. He had decided to watch TV in an effort to fill the silence the house seemed to be bathing in. Arthur yawned and rested his head against the back cushions of the sofa, petting Burger who was stretched out and purring next to him, a blissful expression on his face as his tail repeatedly fell onto the cushions.

There was the sound of a truck racing by outside, clearly faster than they should have been in a residential area. The truck's motor got louder, then it stopped. Arthur heard its door open and close, and the house, despite the quiet murmur of the telly, was silent enough for him to hear footsteps land in front of the front door. Expecting Amelia or Matthew to come inside with an ill Alfred in tow, he switched off the TV and stood, ignoring a whiny yowl from Burger and stepping over Biscuit on his way to the front door.

Despite knowing someone was there, Arthur jumped when the doorbell rang, blaring through the house and stunning it into another calm. Voices carried in from outside, unfamiliar voices. Arthur looked through the peephole and blinked owlishly when he saw nothing there, not a single person waiting outside the door. He unlocked the many locks and turned the knob and opened it, letting humid, summer air inside the house.

A young boy grinned up at him from a lower height, violet eyes crinkled slightly in a smile that was childish and adorable. He had a beige, or perhaps dirty white scarf wrapped around his neck, shielding him from a nonexistent cold. The boy's smile seemed to widen at Arthur's confused expression.

"Hello." Arthur said.

The boy did not reply and just dug in the pockets of a green coat that was far too large for him, scuffing against the ground along with his long scarf. He produced a crinkled up paper from one of the pockets and his unusual violet eyes seemed to glow in contrast with his platinum blonde hair.

"Good evening!" the boy said, a high-pitched and exaggerated tone riddling his strangely accented voice.

Arthur offered a little wave and smiled slightly, amused and confused.

"My name is Ivan!" the boy said as he adjusted his scarf and tried to fix the wrinkles in the paper from his pocket. He held the paper up and offered another closed-mouth smile, bright and sunny beneath his rather large nose.

The paper, wrinkled and stained in places, had big, black letters across the top. _Missing_, it said, obscured by random shapes made from being unfurled again and again. Ivan was holding the paper with both chubby hands, one on each side. He held it up like he was trying to show it to the sky, but he was really just trying to give Arthur a chance to see it. Below the altered letters were two pictures, one hard to diminish with the dimly lit background and blurry backdrop. It portrayed a fuzzy, white blob with snippets of brown and black. The other picture was a lot more clear, Arthur immediately found, as recognition dawned on him immediately.

"Have you seen cat?" Ivan said in broken English, tilting the paper slightly as his voice wavered. The other picture, clear as day, was of Burger. His blue eyes were open mid-blink and he was just sitting on what looked like a wooden table, ears downcast.

Ivan brought the paper back down to his own level and frowned. "No?"

Arthur stammered, "Y-yes, actually."

At this Ivan's eyes brightened once again. "You have?"

"Yes." Arthur repeated, then he turned and jogged to the living room, leaving the door open and Ivan on the porch.

Arthur frowned when he could not seem to find Burger anywhere, not a bushy tail or blue eye to be seen. There was no sign of Biscuit, either. He checked everywhere, even the basement, and still, nothing. He bit his lip and returned to Ivan, who had a look of pure hope plastered across his face.

"Um," Arthur began.

Ivan's hopeful look receded and he smiled sadly. "Kitty is shy I know. He does not like me either, likes to go outside. Could not find him, yes?"

"Yes." Arthur repeated, then winced. "I mean, no, no I couldn't find him. It's strange, he was just there a moment ago." he trailed off.

"We come back later, okay?" Ivan crumpled the paper and shoved it in his pocket once again. He stepped backward, minding the porch steps, and waved dismissively. Arthur nodded mostly to himself and watched as Ivan strode back to the truck, his long, green coat dragging on the asphalt along with his filthy scarf. He now noticed that the boy was nearly in tatters and it worried him slightly, but only slightly. For all he knew, the Ivan's family was just poor.

He started to question his choice in not worrying when he witnessed Ivan climb up the side of the truck and hop into its back; the truck bed, as if it were legal. A window rolled down with a creak and music of another language was blared down the streets. A woman inside the truck shouted to Ivan in what sounded like Russian, then the windows went back up. The truck revved its engines and roared away, too loud in the quiet atmosphere of the neighborhood.

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Alfred came through the front door first, a grim expression settled on his face, his eyes still that cold blue. Arthur was sitting on the couch at the time (he had gone back to watching TV despite nothing good being on), which was located directly near the front door. He blinked green eyes and the American only offered him a small glance before fleeing upstairs, giving Arthur a chance to see the neat, white gauze spread across his nose and the dried blood gathered beneath. He was walking fine, at least. He seemed alright, if a little ornery, and still just a bit aloof. The sudden mood swing had thrown Arthur off, but throughout his lonely day he had come to the conclusion that it was better not to worry, that it was none of his business and Alfred certainly seemed to think the same.

Matthew entered the house second, followed by Amelia, both with rotten frowns splitting their normally kind faces. Amelia drifted up the stairs with the frown still staining her, and Arthur heard her knock on a door, presumably Alfred's. Alfred did not answer and the silence and stillness stayed for just a moment. She sighed and walked away, footsteps creaking the carpeted floorboards and settling the house. Matthew set down a few grocery bags that he had been holding and glanced at Arthur from behind his thick, circular wire frames, a wayward curl of hair bouncing along in front of his eyes. Arthur looked away, he had been unable to look Matthew in the eyes after their confrontation, but Matthew certainly did not have that problem.

He sidled up to Arthur and sat down next to him, not saying a word as per usual, but holding with him an air of gentleness, an air of someone who was nothing but helpful.

"I'm sorry." Matthew said.

Arthur blinked, not expecting that but something more along the lines of another confrontation. "For what?" he said, bewildered.

Still not looking Matthew's way, Arthur heard the violet-eyed boy shift and lean against the back of the couch, rustling its fabric under his weight. "That we sort of put your problem on hold." Matthew explained, voice soft as it usually was.

"I'm sorry?" Arthur said, finally turning to look at Matthew because the careful atmosphere was too much, and there had been far too much carefulness lately for his liking.

Matthew had his elbow resting on the arm of the couch, bunching up one of his cheeks and altering the openness of his eyes, one half closed. His eyes were still their regular shy lavender, but they were greatly highlighted with deep, purple shadows underneath, endless and tired like he had been past the breaking point of insomnia.

He noticed Arthur's questioning look and simpered. "Haven't slept in a while. Came home yesterday, found Al, took him to the doctor."

"Ah."

Matthew rubbed his eyes, lifting up his glasses to do so.

"What I mean is, we haven't really done anything about your problem."

Before Arthur could protest, Matthew broke in. "And yes, you do need our help."

Arthur scowled and turned away again, resisting the urge to pout and fold his arms like a petulant child.

"Al's fine, by the way. His nose got a little banged up, but no concussion or anything. He's just pissy because he hates going to the doctor."

Arthur decided not to bring up the crying fit from the previous night and leaned back, relaxing slightly after a worrisome day. He crossed one leg over the other, a close-minded gesture, and shut his eyes.

"I suppose you ought to be going to bed, then?" he questioned, sympathizing with Matthew as he knew just how badly a sleepless night could affect one's psyche.

Matthew spoke mid-yawn, "I think I might do that." He stood up, stretching his legs as he did so, and crept up the stairs. Halfway up, he called to Arthur in a quiet but carried voice, "Good night."

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That night, Arthur missed the presence of the cats. He blearily wished he had their warm company along with himself and his duvet, cool at first, but slowly heated as he was stationary. He wondered where they were, but left the thought alone, thinking perhaps they had somehow escaped the house when he was busy with Ivan.

He drifted, eyes closing and hiding their acidic green, eyelashes brushing his cheeks as he turned to the wall.

Arthur was, thankfully at first, able to fall into slumber immediately without any hindrances. It was dark, black even, the oblivious feeling of a falling mental state, the feeling one gets when they are lifted away from reality.

The black turned to gray, then it faded to bright, blinding white, so white it could outmatch the pure shining white of owlish eyes. It was the same recurring dream and it was growing tedious, the flashing of lights and floating, maddening murmurs of soundless voices, the criminal way in which everything was so comforting and numb.

Then, shattering and different, the atmosphere changed, the very essence of the illusionist dream, the base of it. It changed completely, something that was sought after but only for a short while, only while it was unknown.

Arthur opened his eyes, or rather, his eyes in a dream-like state, and saw white. Pitch white and nothing else. He choked on his own breath and inwardly grimaced at his dry, deserted eyes, as if they were left on a high plateau viewed by a desert sun. He breathed through his nose in short, feverish gasps, sending cool spouts of air through his broken, pained throat. Arthur could feel the oil trapped in his hair without even touching it, he just felt it against the- the softness. It was soft, the thing against the back of his head, a pillow it felt like. He turned his head just so, wanting to cry out from the pain the action caused, and found the pillow to be a haunting, sickly white along with the sheets. Sheets, he was in a bed, a bed, in a white room with white walls and white ceiling and white, white everything, like heaven almost, but painful and degrading. The machine started, like it always did, the incessant, repeated sound of a robotic beep echoing throughout an empty facility. He shifted his eyes and they found it, the monochromatic black, shielded by a living, breathing line, a green line that again and again filled the shapes of a random zig-zag. It beeped and he felt his own mind, his own self racing with its sound, its line, its trace. Yes, the machine, it was sounding along with his life. A heart monitor, a white bed; no, a hospital. A pure white, ghostly hospital, and barely, for a gleaming, trembling moment, with the soundest glimmer of icy blue. 

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**-accidentally cliffhangs-**

**Oop. :3c**

**Remember the mating unicorn shirt thing from a few chapters ago? That's actually a thing. My sister has the shirt. I'm so jelly. I don't know if there's really a poster though, that was just for convenience. If there is and you want to hang unicorn sex on your wall then give me an internet high five right now you beautiful, twisted reader. Not that wearing it on your torso is any less twisted.**

**And the crying thing. Al wasn't crying because he's painfully awkward or because it hurt. There's a deeply rooted reason that will come up here in a few chapters. Or maybe sooner, I'm not the best at planning. It does have to do with the doctor's office. Winkety-wink-wink-weird-hint.**

**I try to update within 8 days, by the way, and I reckon this will be about 32 chapters long. It's a biggun, boy. **

**I also could not resist making Ivan a little boy, hehehe.**

**Until next time.**


	6. Close Your Eyes

**Welcome.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this fanfiction, or the song that inspired it.**

**REVIEWS**

**Little Octopus: You have a lot of Homestucks at your school. We have like none here, but a crap-ton of Hetalians. More than last year. Also I enjoy bored potatoes. -Uke! Mew!**

**Sora Resi: I know, I'm sorry! I wasn't planning on a cliffie but then it got to 5,000 words (which is my semi-established limit) and I didn't know where to end it so it was just gah! **

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The hospital and its pure white room were strange to Arthur. He wasn't used to lights being dimmer than the walls, or the sterile, sickly yet healthy texture to it all, the way the walls reflected empty white. His room was completely silent except for his soundless beating heart and its matching monitor as it beeped incessantly and without emotion, robotic and recording life.

A dream like haze was still settled over the room however, a feeling that if he were to try and run, he would not be able to, he would only struggle to command his own body as the dream dominated his mind. He had vaguely registered the IV piercing his vein, as well as the teal-white gown lining his shoulders and front, the baggy yet soft fabric seemingly floating above his skin in wrinkles and hills, tied on by mere strings.

The dream was lucid but still, Arthur could move as he wanted, which was only a resorted to a twitch of fingers as anything else stung terribly. He could not make a single sound except for a tiny, high-pitched and short-lived gasp because his throat was too raw for anything else, though he did not know why. His heart monitor sped up as his heart did, growing restless, but tired at the same time, the feeling of working hard for something to end because it was ridiculously exhausting. Arthur tried to move more, he wiggled his fingers, sending jolts of energy to his feet just trying to move them. His vision blurred at the effort as did his consciousness, his presence and his state of mind. He felt like his existence itself was crumbling, dying off silently. And, for reasons he cannot fathom, he did not want the dream to end like that.

Arthur's prayers were answered when, miraculously, the door to his room opened and let the downward murmurs of the corridors inside, giving the slightest and most sought after inkling of sound. The fuzzy images of nurses in multicolored scrubs raced past with their paperwork, soft shoes delicately tapping on the clean tile floor. The person who opened the door, blurry to Arthur's chagrin, gasped. Arthur blinked owlishly and tiredly as the person jogged silently to his side, sitting on a chair that he had not noticed before. Arthur, with his dimming green eyes and weak, twig like bones searched the blurry person for any sort of identification, anything at all, and was only met with two glimmering lights of hope, two rays of sunshine that held like a winter blue after a hail storm. They were achingly familiar, but Arthur simply could not remember for the life of him why those two twinkling irises gave him so much hope.

The dream began to fade, then, everything's white and nothing's colors growing larger in blobs and blurs, until they all faded, blended into white, and he felt his eyes closing once again.

Then, the white was gone and the black reappeared, and he felt his eyes opening. Clearer this time, without the beeping or the silence. It was still quiet, but not terribly so. The murmurs of the outside world still floated into the house along with the hum of the house itself.

Arthur sighed and moved, happy that he was able to do so now but confused, unsure as he rested on his side and stared at the door, unaware of the curious way in which his eyes glowed in the darkness. He simply stayed for a while, bathed in darkness and the filtering moonlight of outside shimmering from the window. He vaguely registered that he had woken up and – he checked the wall clock – that it was 2 in the morning, a time that seemed to have become a habitual awakening. Arthur shuddered and burrowed into the covers, then, with a burst of annoyance, he kicked the blankets away with a frustrated whine.

First, the world decided to bestow upon him the cruel fate of being, well, dead as far as everyone was concerned. Then, it had the brilliant idea of giving him a dream like _that_. He considered the idea that perhaps the two were connected, but dismissed it as blasphemy. It was just a simple recurring dream, happening again and again, perhaps his subconscious trying to alert him of mental worries or foreshadowed problems.

It was certain that sleep was futile at this point. Arthur put his weight on unsteady feet, wobbling and dizzy because he stood too quickly. He watched his closed door come into focus, shifting to the left, right, then centering and becoming visible in the adaptable dark. Arthur walked, slowly like one does when they awake suddenly and without warning to the body. The door opened in blessed quiet, not making a single sound in the silent – no, that was wrong, it wasn't completely silent.

A heavy trickle of sound filtered upward from below, lowly and restrained in moonlit darkness and absent liveliness. Arthur curiously ventured down the stairs with hesitant steps, minding the slippery floor as he reached the bottom and turned the corner, finding the noise pouring in from the living room with the blue brightness of television and muted moonlight.

Alfred was, as usual, playing late night video games, eyes glued to the screen with a look of aloof concentration, a gaze of absolute fixation that did not seem to fit on his facial features. He was sat cross-legged on the carpet, too close to the screen for it to be healthy. A tipped over bottle of pain killers lay fallen on the ground next to him, its lid slightly open and spilling. The gauze resting atop his nose was luminescent in the droning light, brighter than everything but the television. He was playing with one hand and scratching Biscuit's belly with the other, the feline uncharacteristically sprawled on his lap as Alfred played.

Arthur had come down the stairs solely for a glass of water, as doing so always seemed to motivate him to wait out the rest of the quiet, lonely, sleepless night, the better nights than the dream-filled ones, the nights with unanswered questions and monochromatic headaches. He shuffled into the kitchen and opened a wooden cabinet, retrieving a tall, cool glass and setting it under the faucet. It filled with water and reflected the small lights in the house on its sides, like the clock on the oven or the blinking lights of the kitchen smoke detector (which he had set off more times than he'd like to admit).

Alfred glanced at him quickly, noticing him, then immediately looked back at the screen with tired eyes. His hands seemed to fidget on the buttons more so than before, tapping them without pressing them and sometimes missing them all together.

Biscuit's green eyes cracked open and he meowed, stretching out and seeming to smile in a catty way, swishing his tail this way and that way until relaxing once again. One could clearly hear the sound of the cat's clawed paws kneading on Alfred's pants and stopping in intervals.

Alfred chewed on his lip before beckoning Arthur over, not aggressively but with a slight flick of his eyes that was understandable enough. Curiously, the green-eyed teen put his empty glass in the sink as was procedure. He padded into the dimly lit room and sat on the sofa, squinting at the screen as Alfred's character eviscerated a zombie's throat rather gruesomely. Alfred smiled victoriously as its pixelated body sprayed dead, brown-crimson blood across the wall and fell with a recorded thud and muted groan.

This went on for a while before Alfred's posture began to diminish. His character left a rusty, abandoned lab behind and broke into the dark forest, the chirps of crickets and rustling blades of grass sounding in tandem as the moon was shown and a crowd of the undead approached. Alfred battled them with ease, expertly tapping the buttons in perfect order as if playing video games was an art form, which, in Alfred's point of view, it probably was.

"Can you not sleep at night? You're always up in the wee hours." Arthur observed, watching the game play out as honest boredom crossed his features. This wasn't his thing, but what else was there to do?

Alfred absently scratched at Biscuit's ears as he contemplated his answer.

"I can when school starts. I like to stay up in the summer." he said, nonchalant as he leaned to the side to get a better imaginary angle on the game.

Arthur nodded mutely, knowing Alfred didn't see his response but deciding it was enough. He fiddled with the buttons on his flannel pajama shirt, rolling their transparent plastic in between his fingers and simultaneously pulling at their string-bound fabric. He silently played with the shirt for a while, his mind building up with more and more pressure as he went on. Arthur's stomach filled with overexcited butterflies and he flexed his muscles, and swallowing thickly, he blurted, "I had the dream again." He flushed and shrunk in on himself.

Alfred stayed quiet once again and Biscuit's tail fell against the floor. He then paused the game and did an awkward half-crawl backward until his back came in contact with the coffee table. Then he turned, looking at Arthur with eyes no longer an icy blue but like the blue of a desert sky, contrasting greatly with its warm backdrop and thus becoming warm itself.

"Was it the same?" he rested his chin on the table and folded his arms underneath, like a bored toddler.

Surprised by Alfred's willingness to listen, Arthur's flush began to fade and he became more calm, but no less startled.

"No," he began, "no, it was not."

Alfred blinked twice and pushed his glasses up his nose, displaying the exhausted circles shadowing the cerulean orbs. Arthur had a sinking feeling that Alfred was lying about staying awake intentionally, for the tired, darkened violet patches of skin told another story. Still, Alfred was looking at him with pure inquisitiveness, and Arthur was happy that he was not being dismissed. He smiled wanly and continued.

"But it was the same, for a time. It started out the same but then it got more detailed. The white was a hospital, and the beeping was my heart monitor."

Alfred nodded in understanding and Arthur sighed inwardly.

"It ends with someone coming through the door to my room and rushing to my side, but it was still too blurry for me to see."

The younger teen puffed out his cheeks and hummed in thought. He closed his eyes softly behind his glasses, wincing as the metallic frames rubbed against his tender nose. They balanced atop his rectangular bandage and he sighed, unknowingly glinting moonlight off the silvery wiring and reflective lenses. Alfred opened his eyes again and his blue eyes shone through the light.

"You want to know what I think?"

Arthur nodded, contemplating adding an 'of course' but deciding against the action to retain the liquid silence swimming in the room.

"I think," he breathed deeply for a moment, "I think you keep getting the dream because it has something to do with why you're here."

Arthur had come to that conclusion himself, if a little vaguely. He could not, however, deny that it was refreshing to hear someone else repeat his own drifting, melancholic thoughts. Of course, he had also come to the conclusion that this was all unreal, that things like this did not happen.

"I think so too, but, I just- I just..." he clenched his eyes shut, scowling, as if he were bothered with a migraine. Arthur rubbed at his temples in an attempt to not only soothe a growing headache, but as well as his rampant and dreadfully philosophical thoughts. "Would you think badly of me if I told you something strange?"

Alfred quirked an eyebrow but slowly shook his head, interested piqued.

Arthur nodded. "Sometimes, it's the strangest sensation, being here. Sometimes I feel like I'm _not _here, I know that I shouldn't be, and it often drives me mad that I am. What's odd is, I feel like I'm- like I'm not real. Like you aren't real, and that this house isn't real, and that no one here is- is real." he breathed shakily, hearing his own breath shudder in anxiety, the fluttery, hesitant feeling that infects a person when they confess something.

"The strangest thing is, I look in the mirror and I can't help but think that- it's, well, that isn't me. I'm not here. My eyes aren't the same, especially, and-" he cut himself short.

"And?" Alfred prodded.

"And." Arthur gulped, not sure if he should say anything, not sure why he would say anything at all because it didn't even make sense. He clenched his jaw and attained a steady mindset. "Neither are yours." he choked out.

For a while things were cold, achingly quiet. The buzz of television was tangible in the room, easily detected in taunting, eerie quiet that would startle any single living thing faced with such silence. A loud snore from upstairs broke the silence, and Arthur felt his breath hitch. Why had he said that? He didn't know what it meant, or what possessed him to say it- or anything, really, he knew nothing.

"What?" Alfred said.

Arthur chanced a look at the boy and found him with a terribly confused expression marring his bruised face. Good, he didn't understand it, because neither did Arthur.

"I... don't know." Arthur croaked.

Alfred frowned and set his chin on the table again, eyes crinkling in a cringe when he hit a particularly sensitive bruise. "Ow," he whispered, before turning around and picking up his controller again.

His game unpaused at the click of a button and the quiet lessened, seeming to leave completely, but lurking nearby in Arthur's head. He shuddered when a breeze from the open window brushed across his shoulder, flowing into the room from the summer night.

He turned to close the window behind him, but was interrupted.

"Don't close it." Alfred said, looking over his shoulder and back at Arthur. He scanned the room, then quietly added, "I keep it open for the cats."

Arthur smiled wryly and nodded just as Biscuit came trotting back into the room, hopping into Alfred's lap and purring.

"I take it you two are good friends?" Arthur gestured to the fold, settled neatly on top of Alfred's crossed legs.

Alfred simpered fondly and nodded, scratching Biscuit behind his orange ear. "I guess. Burger hates me though."

"I can see that. Have you seen him around?"

Alfred shook his head and looked over his shoulder once again, not noticing as his character received a nasty blow to the head by a particularly ornery zombie.

"Why? Did he go somewhere?" he asked, absently playing with Biscuit's tail and giggling when the petite kitten swatted at him.

Arthur relaxed, grateful for the change in atmosphere. He flexed his toes under socks and crossed one leg over the other, thinking back on his day.

"I don't know, but a young boy came asking for him while you were at the hospital. When I went to look for him, he disappeared."  
Alfred frowned, eyes distant. "That's weird. I thought he was a stray."

Arthur shrugged, rubbing his eyes and smoothing out his eyebrows in an acquired self-conscious gesture.

"The boy seemed kind, I wouldn't worry."

Alfred snorted. "Oh, I wasn't worried about Burger. I was worried about his poor owner."

Arthur bristled and furrowed his eyebrows, curling his toes and biting his lip. Burger wasn't that bad...

"Leave him alone. He's sweet if you avoid eye contact."

"What kind of cat avoids eye contact?"

"They all do! It's considered rude to them!"

"Er..." Alfred trailed off. "Right." he said, not quite sure how to respond to something so matter-of-fact in an argument. He just turned back to his game and blanched at the amount of health his character had.

"What- shit!" Alfred said, much too loud in the sleepy house. "Are you kidding me?"

Arthur snickered and relaxed against the side of the couch. His dream and all of its attributes seemed almost forgotten, except for the slight bit about frozen blue eyes twinkling in the very back recesses of his mind.

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Matthew found them in the morning as white light peeked in from the blinds, shining on their faces in a comforting light.

Arthur had his head completely collapsed against the armrest of the couch, hair scattering around his scalp and glowing golden in the morning sun. He snored lightly as his eyelashes blanketed his light freckles, visible in the magnifying light and chipper morning mood.

Alfred, on the other hand, was looking a bit less angelic. One eye seemed more closed that the other as his mouth hung open, half buried against the carpet. He must have fallen asleep in a sitting position, because his legs were still crossed (and surely asleep). He lay hunched over them, chest touching his knees as he snored against the carpet. How he could sleep like that, Matthew did not know.

He approached his brother first, standing a distance away before padding near and lightly shaking his shoulder.

Alfred groaned in his sleep and immediately flinched upward, breathing heavily before settling his eyes on Matthew. His eyes were wide and clearly visible without his glasses, and it brought out the dark, black rings lining under his eyes.

"Matt?" he said blearily, frowning as he searched for his glasses on the floor.

Matthew was still for a moment, his brother's eyes photographing in his mind before he shook his head and bent down, retrieving Alfred's glasses and handing them to him.

Alfred mumbled a thanks and slipped them atop his nose, blinking owlishly and glancing at the screen. A large, bold 'GAME OVER' flashed on the screen, white letters shadowed by a pitch black backdrop. He looked back at Arthur and instantly regretted it.

He swallowed and looked away, flushing at the way the sunlight made the Brit's skin so pale, so much that it revealed the fact that Arthur had freckles. Alfred found freckles adorable. These thoughts needed to stop immediately, he decided, lest he lose his sanity.

"Er." Matthew began, wanting to ignore the red lining Alfred's cheeks. "I, uh, I made pancakes, come uh... get some." he said before walking out of the room. The violet-eyed teen glanced back, only to find Alfred looking at Arthur once again with the strangest look on his face. He swallowed and left the room, blaming his brother's odd behavior on morning disorient, because he hoped desperately that was the case.

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Arthur grimaced, appalled by the ridiculous amount of maple syrup drowning his fluffy, carb-filled pancakes. These pancakes were a lot different than what he was used to back home...

He choked the sugary mess down his throat and took an immediate swig of milk to wash it down. Matthew gave him an odd look before dipping his spoon in the syrup gathered on his plate and popping it into his mouth. Yes, it was certainly different here.

"Where's Mom?" Alfred asked around a mouthful of pancake.

"Chew your food." Matthew scolded as he poured more sticky syrup on his plate. "And she's planning the trip. She went to book airline tickets."

Alfred stopped chewing his food, pausing mid-bite with an unreadable expression on his face. Arthur shuddered at the cold in his eyes.

"Okay." he replied, saying nothing more as he continued eating.

Arthur frowned. "Trip?" he asked. "As in, a holiday?"

"What?" Alfred said, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, a vacation." Matthew answered, saving Arthur from confusion.

Before he clarified further, Matthew stared long and hard at Arthur's nearly full plate.

"Are you going to eat those?"

"Er, well-"

Matthew seemed to reach over at light speed, gripping the side of Arthur's plate with frightening strength and dragging it in front of himself.

"I can tell you aren't, so I'll take them." he said coldly, as if the pancakes were his children. Alfred snickered and kept eating.

"And yes, vacation. Um."

Matthew lost his resolve and ogled at the pancakes, not sure how to explain.

"They go to see Matt's dad." Alfred said flatly. His voice was monotone and out of place in the morning, contrasting with the noise of singing birds and rustling grass outside.

He seemed as if he didn't want to clarify further. Arthur turned his head on to the side slightly, before sighing and looking out the window. Brown, brittle birds flew against the wind, seeming to hover in place as their home, the sky, bid them good morning. They were desperately trying to get somewhere, but staying the same, only able to change direction.

"Oh." he said, standing and pushing his chair in. He wanted to know more, but he was sure the neither of the brother's would budge, so he left the subject alone.

For now.

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Alfred groaned and poked his sore nose, cursing the sun and its rays as it pounded down on the concrete.

Arthur gave him a sympathetic look as they walked. Alfred shrunk under the August sun, trudging along simply because he had to.

"Why is your mum making you and I go on errands while you're recovering?"

Alfred sighed dramatically, drawing out the sound as if everything in the world was annoying him at that moment. He grumbled something about getting out of the house, before taking his glasses off. At Arthur's questioning look he sighed again.

"Hurts like hell to wear glasses with a banged up nose."

"Ah."

"Feels like a sunburn out here."

"I bet."

Arthur pulled up the sleeves of his brown sweater, settling them at his elbows and immensely regretting buying the thing. It wasn't his fault he wasn't used to such intense heat... or any heat at all, really.

"You're wearing an undershirt, right?" Alfred asked, turning to Arthur with a truly miserable expression. It was an understatement to say that Arthur pitied the fool.

"Well, yes." Arthur answered, not sure where this was going.

"Why not just take the sweater off?" Alfred suggested, inwardly praising himself at still having the capabilities of being helpful in the sweltering heat.

Arthur sputtered, crossing his arms and immediately feeling the sweat gathering there.

"Because that would be indecent!" he cried. Several pedestrians gave him odd looks for shouting on a busy sidewalk, but otherwise left him alone.

"Weirdo." Alfred said, trying to spike Arthur's anger.

The Brit nearly fired back an insult before he bumped into something, or rather someone, forehead hitting the person's shoulder unpleasantly. He stumbled back.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't watching where-"

He paused, breath hitching when he felt a firm grip on his hand. His head whipped to the side and his eyes landed on Alfred, standing still and breathing heavily. The grip on his hand showed that he was shaking, but his expression was steely, not showing an ounce of weakness.

Arthur, confused, followed Alfred's line of vision and found the person he bumped into to be standing in the same spot.

"_Mon cher!_" the man said, deep blue eyes lighting up at the sight of Alfred. With a dramatic flip of his blonde hair, he smiled warmly. "How are you feeling? What are the odds of this? I go on my lunch break and bump into my favorite patient and- oh!"

The exuberant man's eyes fell on their clasped hands. He stroked his stubble in thought, as if it were a real beard. The man adjusted the sleeves on his long-sleeved shirt before reaching out to presumably shake Arthur's hand.

Arthur, clueless and puzzled, rested his hand in the flighty man's. His ocean blue eyes seemed to twinkle and he smiled, a lovely, extravagant smile that reminded one of beauty and fine wine. Arthur swore he say the man wink before bending down and kissing his hand, which he promptly pulled away with a grimace.  
"Er-" he began, but was interrupted.

"I am Francis Bonnefoy." the man, Francis, said silkily and gestured to his name tag. "I am a pediatrician, and I have known _cher _Alfred here since he was so young! It is great to know that he has found someone!"

Arthur blanched and Alfred immediately made a u-turn, not letting go of Arthur's hand and striding with a purpose. He barely registered the sound of Francis calling out behind him but he ignored it, instead focusing on the shaking of Alfred's hand in his own.

"Alfred, are you-"

"Just don't talk right now." he heard Alfred say quietly, barely registered on the bustling streets.

They arrived home without further incident and lost Francis somewhere downtown. Alfred sat on the porch step, gripping his hair and closing his eyes to shield them from the August sun. He let go of Arthur's hand and let his own fall, resting limply on the dusty wood of the porch. It reminded Arthur so much of the time two nights ago, when Alfred had suddenly burst into hysterics, the avid look in his eyes and the way he gripped his hair, as if faced with wild frustration.

Arthur sat gingerly next to the boy and held his quaking hand, unsure of everything.

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**I'm sorry if this seems oddly paced, especially the last bit.**

**-whispers- The Frenchie has a secret.**

**Until next time.**


	7. Some Days

**Welcome.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this fanfiction, or the song that inspired it.**

**REVIEWS**

**Sora Resi: Ahonhonhonhon~!**

**AliceXOffered: ~( 0 v 0)~ Eee, I'm honored that you took the time!**

**Little Octopus: I have an odd obsession with both of those things. I'm glad you think so! The eye thing will make sense later, Dear. -Uke**

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Over the next few days, time passed by slowly. The happiness of July, the month's baggage of smiles and summer, faded. It made way for the burning heat of August, made a clear path for the dry, clear days that bordered along the outlines of studious demeanor, cloudless skies that acted as a magnifying glass to an approaching school year. Only a month-long magnifying glass, but optimistically, it seemed so far away.

The time was spent for Arthur in a summer haze with the buzzing of cicadas and the trickling of sprinklers, sending streams of sound over fences and covering the noise of childish laughter, the noise of spinning wheels cascading over bumpy concrete and sidewalk chalk.

He clapped the book closed, the sound of colliding pages filling his bedroom for a fleeting second. He stared at its back cover and let out a drawn breath through his nose, rolling his shoulders and softly closing his eyes. They opened again, vibrant greens surveying the back cover with feigned interest about the author's notes. He respected them with their work of course, but reading the paragraphs seemed so tedious, so he never did. This only struck him with guilt because he had, at a certain point in his life, contemplated becoming a writer. However, when he heard stories of terrifying writer's block, late nights filled with caffeine, and the tired dancing of fingers upon keys, it frightened him off. Arthur loved to read, but not so much to write. He found he liked to draw more, to record his thoughts on thin, limp paper in messy images and liberated angles. He enjoyed the way the tiny, purposeful lines cascaded into a final line, the way in which a surplus of smaller things could paint an entire picture. Perhaps this path was filled with late nights as well, early mornings and evenings riddled with crude pencil etchings and caffeine. Although, he wouldn't mind the waterfall of caffeine if it was tea.

Arthur smiled to himself, a small, subtle gesture of self-deprecation. He stood and knelt next to the book shelf, sliding the book inside, storing it with limitless inky pages.

This moment, however, was not as it should be. Arthur tsked and frowned, gazing at the completely full shelves, grimacing at the single fact that he had, indeed, read every single book in the household. The paper spines all gazed back at him, jaded and innocent in his quiet room as elderly, evening sunlight filtered in from behind the blinds. He thought he might read them over again, but decided against it. Surely there was something better he could do with his time.

Arthur left, opening his door and venturing downstairs, minding the slick floor as his socked feet came in contact with it and his hand slid away from the railing.

Matthew, looking weary and unwell, was sitting with his knees on the floor near the coffee table. In front of him was an open suitcase, half packed with clothing and toiletries. The soft-spoken teen noticed Arthur's presence and did not smile, but offered a dismissive wave. He was sorting through piles of clothing with concentration, eyes focused and half-mast in the cinnabar evening light.

Matthew and Amelia were leaving for Canada the next day. He still had yet to get the entire story, but it seemed it wasn't exactly widely talked about among the family. Furthermore, he recalled their conversation at breakfast a few days ago. Why was it just Matthew's father, not Alfred's? He understood that it was most likely something along the lines of a divorce. Yet from the way they acted when the subject was brought up, it was either a nasty split, or something completely different.

Before he could go elsewhere, Matthew piped up.

"Have you seen Al today?"

Arthur halted his movements and glanced at the stairs.

"No, but I've heard him moving about in his room. The walls are rather thin. Why?"

Matthew removed his glasses and swept the fringe of his hair aside, sending his springy cowlick into a series of bounces. He worried at his lower lip.

"He didn't eat his breakfast and hasn't left his room since."

Arthur quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"I'm afraid he hasn't ate today." Matthew fretted. "Can you go get him? Mom said I could drive him to McDonalds."

Arthur watched the sun set outside, painting the horizon in goldenrod hues and vermillion pigments. He wordlessly stepped up the series of stairs, padding down the carpeted hallway and stopping in front of the younger's closed door.

He heard a slight shift inside before lightly knocking on the pallid wood, stationary as a rustling immediately came from inside the room.

A lock clicked on the door and its silver doorknob turned. The door opened a mere crack and a small fraction of Alfred's face poked out, shadowed by the terribly dim light of the room. Why was he keeping it so dark?

"What?" Alfred asked, and Arthur heard the indirect malice tainting his voice.

Arthur frowned. "Matthew is asking for you."

Alfred seemed to shrink back, like a frightened old cat into the corner of a filthy alley.

"What does he want?"

"He wants to take you to McDonalds, because you haven't eaten all day."

At that, Alfred seemed relieved, taking back some of his confidence.

"Oh... oh, okay, sure." he then disappeared behind his door again, and Arthur heard some movement before the boy emerged once again, wearing a pair of sweats and an old looking T-shirt.

When the two of them reappeared at the bottom of the stairs, Matthew was giving Alfred a perplexed look.

"You're usually pumped to go to McDonalds." he commented, closing his suitcase and zipping it halfway.

Alfred only shrugged and put his hands into his pockets, not looking Matthew in the eyes.

Matthew furrowed his eyebrows and seemed to want to say something, before his eyes fell upon Arthur and he sighed airily, putting the words away.

"Let's just go." he mumbled, exasperated. Matthew fetched his keys from an end table and opened the door, heading down the drive and beckoning for his younger brother to follow. Alfred hunched his shoulders and left as well, squinting as the August sun sent a seemingly unlimited supply of heat below. Arthur could swear the boy glanced back at him, but we wasn't certain, because the his glasses were white with evening light and reticence.

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Arthur shivered, feeling currents of ice pass through his veins with hasty jolts. He opened his eyes, gathering his duvet closer around his body for warmth. It was strange, being cold in the summertime. The Brit cursed his own ignorance and sat up, shutting his window that was letting the draft in.

The blackness of night was silent now, absent of the rustling of leaves, the chirping of nocturnal crickets, or the whistling of wind.

His room was chilled from the nightly breeze and everything was cool to the touch, even his own skin was coated with the clammy feeling. He sighed and clutched his covers, standing on chilly legs that were riddled with goosebumps.

Arthur, slow and awkward at some ungodly hour, yawned as he cracked open his door. It was becoming somewhat of a habit, waking in the night to just be awake. Normally he would read for a few hours before attempting to sleep again, but now that he had read every book in the house, there wasn't much of a point to that. Now, he simply found his way downstairs and did the tired equivalent of nothing. Sometimes, looking out the window was somewhat amusing, lifting his eyes over proud roofs and watching cars race by, imitating red, white, orange shooting stars on worn highways. After a while of this it became boring and sometimes he would just notice his own face staring back at himself, curious, vibrant emeralds staring at their mirror images. He would notice his messy hair and try to tame it, or find a wayward lash clinging to his freckled cheeks. A strange series of actions, really. What use was there to stare out the window in the night? Anyone would think it weird, or perhaps an open-minded person would call it enchanting while secretly being bored by the thought.

To Arthur, though, it was like looking at a brave new world, the rolling fields of American soil behind roads, the cars, stupidly speeding down the wrong side of the road.

He grimaced when the bottom stair creaked and set foot on the warm floor. What a foolish action, leaving his window open in the night. What was he thinking?

Instead of peering out the back window as he usually did, he tugged at his blankets and headed to the front window. He had taken the covers with him to ward off the chill, and perhaps warm them up with the heat that did not seem to reach his room.

Across the road in a neighboring house, visible easily in darkness, a light was on. Through the window a shadow moved, faintly, with tired gait and relaxed posture. He thought the yellow of this light reminded him of the ones hiding in the lights of cars.

A truck veered past, steady in the slumbering neighborhood. Moments later a jogger, one that was particularly batty to be up and about in the chilly, dangerous night. She was confident with her strides though, and the sidewalk pounded with each of her heavy steps. It was nice to see such people, unfazed by the dark.

Perhaps it was creepy or rude to just be watching the neighborhood like this, but there was no ill intent. A moth knocked on the window and Arthur smiled, sleepy, wan, up at the fuzzy creature. It landed on the glass outside, wings twitching. It looked like it was breathing.

Then, with a sudden beat of its wings, it was off. As it distanced itself it began to resemble a mite of dust, floating avidly in the night as it faded away. He resisted the urge to wave, because that would have been a bit nuts.

When his eyes dropped back to the road, however, he felt like me might jump out of his skin. A yellow light, much like the window across the way and the shooting stars on the road, was glowing in the streets. A car, a rusty, old car was parked in front of the house. Its headlights illuminated the road in triangular beams, giving light to the particles of dust floating through them.

The thing that scared Arthur, or at least alarmed him, was the person inside, stranger yet the look this person was giving him. Arthur had met the man earlier, and after a puzzled moment, he recalled his name. It was the same man that had kissed his hand much too intimately, the one with the wavy, golden hair and growing layer of stubble.

Francis was glaring death at Arthur from his perch in front of the house. The expression was ugly on his face, rancid even. It made Arthur want to shrink away, just from that single, charring look. The way his hair fell over his eyes, shadowing them with malice and poisoning them from deep blue to vibrant lilac. It seemed out of character and just wrong, because the man was so happy and full of life when he had met him.

Yet here he was, just staring, watching the house and firing daggers at Arthur.

Overtaken with alarm, the Brit shut the curtains quickly. He breathed heavily, shoulders moving up and down in anxious, frightened patterns. He backed away, wrapped in blankets and on the carpet for the longest time. It occurred to him that perhaps he might call someone upstairs, but he was frozen in place. The light of the car was still visible through the curtains, yellow and blurred behind lacy drapes and dark shadows.

Arthur began to move further, but then, a tapping sounded on the window. It was light, eerie. It was without rhythm, without purpose and without life. Arthur was shaking terribly and the sound continued. Then, it got louder, noisier still. He took a deep, shuddering breath and tore open the curtains, heart ramming wildly against his ribs. The window displayed black light.

There was nothing. Francis was gone, his car too. The tapping, Arthur found, belonged to a moth. The same one from earlier. It landed on the glass for a moment, and with one, two, three twitched of its raggedy wings, it flew away, wings beating shadows to the ground as it flew.

Arthur let go of the curtains and just stared outside once again, but not for the same reason. This time, he was afraid, but of what he did not know. It was in the pitch black that he noticed the moon had hidden behind a cloud, and the stars had vanished with the smog.

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Arthur was not able to sleep that night. At about 6 AM, before anyone had risen, he fidgeted in his blanket cocoon and finally stood again with trembling feet.

He knocked softly on Alfred's door, eyes wide as he stared at the doorknob.

A moment later, Alfred opened the door, looking like he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep.

"Yeah?" he said through a yawn.

"I need to talk to you!" Arthur hissed, half-yelling, half-whispering.

Before Alfred even had a chance to respond, Arthur gave him a feral look, with insistent eyes. He did not want to have this conversation in the middle of a doorway. Arthur, with a small burst of clarity, began to feel silly, barging into the boy's room at the very brink of sunrise, but he could just not get the toxic, loathsome look of Francis out of his head. Perhaps there was a reason Alfred was so shaken when he was around the man?

"Talk away." Alfred sighed, startled and bothered, not only by Arthur but by the fact that he had gotten little to no sleep that night.

Arthur swallowed and looked around, eyes observing the dimly lit hall with anxious countenance. He clutched his blankets, opened his mouth, and shut it again, trapping shaky words inside.

Alfred gave him an odd look.

"You okay?"

"Fantastic." Arthur dead-panned before practically shoving Alfred back into his room. The door swung on impact and Arthur toed inside, as quietly as he could, before shutting it, making sure to turn the handle so it wouldn't make any noise.

"Turn a light on!" he hissed.

Alfred rustled around for a moment before turning on a small desk lamp, ignoring its buzzing, electric flicker as it came to life. The room was now dimly lit, and for the moment, Arthur had to ignore the dastardly mess that littered the floor. He shied away at the tired, questioning look Alfred was giving him as he stood awkwardly by his desk, one hand on its surface where it fell away from the lamp.

"Do you remember the man we saw a few days ago?" Arthur inquired, huddling in the blankets.

"Who?" Alfred asked.

"Francis." Arthur clarified.

The American's eyes widened into little blue beads, and Arthur could see his adam's apple bounce in a big, nervous gulp. Then, the falsest, most fabricated smile Arthur had ever seen was plastered onto the boy's face. It was a sickly sweet excuse for a grin, reminding Arthur the of the feeling one was burdened with after eating too many sweets. The smile didn't reach Alfred's eyes and his shoulders were achingly tense.

"Alfred?"

"Yeah, I remember." his voice cracked midway through the statement and his smile faltered, painfully stretching his cheeks.

"Why are you smiling?" Arthur asked, hesitant and a little frightened. Alfred's pallid complexion reminded Arthur of Francis, shadowed by his oily fringe in the silent night. He didn't like this, whatever it was. It made him want to hurl, and he hadn't the slightest idea why.

"I'm not smiling." Alfred said, furrowing his eyebrows and losing the saccharine grin. It was as if he had come back to reality.

"R-right."

A terse silence passed through the room, chilling as it settled the still, warm air.

Arthur swallowed, and suddenly felt stupid, bundled in his blankets and standing there like a scared toddler. Something about Alfred's demeanor made him feel like he didn't have the right to be scared. The fact of last night still needed to be known though, and he felt that Alfred, as ill taken as he was with Francis, would be the one to tell.

"You wanted to tell me something?" the younger said, distant.

"Yes," Arthur lowered his eyelids, putting on his best poker face because he was not sure what to expect, "but before I tell you, I'd like you to tell me something."

Alfred didn't say anything at looked at Arthur blankly, like he was two inches tall. Arthur reckoned he was just putting on a tough act though, if his shaking hands and slightly widened eyes had any say in the matter.

"Why are you so afraid of Francis?"

Alfred discreetly clenched his fists at his sides, ignoring the stinging sensation of nails digging into his palms. He clenched his jaw, too, as if it would help.

"I'm not scared of Francis."

Arthur glared.

"I would be if I were you, because he was parked outside of this house last night, just watching. He saw me, and he glared death at me." the Brit paused, briefly noticing that he was shaking, "Is it strange that I felt like I should run from him?"

Arthur observed Alfred, noticing the way his eyes widened further, realizing the way that his shoulders shook and the way his head hung low, shadowing his eyes with his hair. To Arthur, he looked like an overgrown child, and perhaps, that's what he was. His cold eyes masterfully disguised the youthful boy below.

"It's not strange." he muttered. Arthur registered the little droplets cascading from his eyes and melting into the carpet, creating a small, damp puddle of specks in the fabric. Alfred, tenser than ever, began to gasp and hiccup, he began to heave violently and his breathing became chaotic. "It's not strange at all, because I get that feeling too."

The boy trailed off, and Arthur wanted to burst out, to tell him to keep talking, to clarify. He needed to know, because then maybe they could do something about it. For a while Alfred was quiet and his tears stopped. He stood, motionless, on his floor like a limp puppet.

"I remember when I was little, he used to sit outside the house like that." he said finally. Looking up at Arthur, he showed him his red, watery eyes.

"Why would he do that?" Arthur prodded, an insistent gentleness in his voice.

"Because he didn't want me to tell anyone."

They were both quiet in the gentle morning, not wanting to disturb the peace outside the room's walls. The entire time their voices had been lowered, but Alfred wanted to sob loudly, preferably alone, or perhaps not. He didn't know which was better anymore. He always did it alone though, with only his own thoughts as source of dwindling comfort. His head was a mess, it was muddled, blurred. He felt like his thoughts were listlessly flying everywhere, aimless and disoriented as his mind became a jumble of words. It was a sort of painful nostalgia he was feeling. He felt like he was nestled on the sofa once again, staring right back at that twisted, hysterical man sitting outside his house with guarded blue eyes. Alfred felt that he was a lot braver back then, because he didn't know what really had happened. Back then, he felt like he had to prove it to Francis that he wouldn't tell anyone what happened that day, he felt like he had to pretend to be a grown-up.

Now, though, now that he knew exactly what the man had done, now that he knew what had happened, he was afraid instead of brave. He didn't have as much naivety now as he did then.

When he fell down the stairs, the thought hadn't occurred to him that he might see Francis again. That night, when hysterics took him at the most peculiar of times, it was because he had realized, not only that, but he had remembered. He had recalled what Francis didn't want him to tell. Perhaps, if he had known for a longer time, or perhaps if he could have coped, it wouldn't have hit him this hard. He was denied that though, when Francis disappeared and his mind locked away the memories.

Truthfully, he had only remembered within the span of that night.

"Did you say he saw you in the window?" Alfred whispered, almost too quiet to be heard.

Arthur was giving him this concerned look, an expression that a passerby would give a madman on the streets. He didn't like that. He felt like Arthur wasn't getting the big picture here. The Brit stood, still with blankets adorning his shoulders, making him seem feeble, meek in comparison. His eyes were half-lidded and somber and his posture was straight, assertive. Alfred felt like he was being put through an interview.

The older teen's slight form under the blankets somehow made him appear even more clueless. The confident way in which he was speaking...

"Did you?" he repeated, a little louder.

"Yes."

The way Arthur's face contorted into a frown, the harmless gesture of averting his eyes away, perhaps out of dwindling confidence, worried Alfred. He felt the wetness gather behind his eyes again, he felt the tickling sensation in his head, the choked, speechless feeling in the back of his throat.

Without thinking, and before tears could make steady paths down his cheeks once again, he lunged forward, not sure if it was to hide the tears or out of what he thought was impulse. Deep down though, he knew it wasn't impulse.

Losing any and all reason he may have had at that moment, he gripped Arthur by his upper arms and pulled him forward, ignoring the surprised gasp he gave.

Arthur stumbled a little, not expecting to be man-handled so suddenly. In his shock he had dropped the blankets and they fell from his shoulders, quickly sliding down his body before uselessly slumping against the floor. It was cold in his flannel pajamas, but only for a moment, because soon Alfred was squeezing the life out of him and ridding him of breath. The hands left his arms and instead formed a strangling grip around his entire body that made him feel small. He could feel Alfred's heart racing, but the closeness didn't bother him as much as it should have when he felt wetness soaking through the shoulder of his pajamas.

Arthur, still a little surprised, tried to lift his arms but found he was unable to underneath Alfred's abnormal strength.

"Alfred?" he said, as if that were question enough.

The only replies he received were more silent tears, melting into his shirt, followed by something that sounded slightly akin to a sniffle. Something clattered on the ground and Arthur had to crane his head to see what it was. Apparently, Alfred's glasses had somehow fallen off and were now resting limply on the ground as their owner trembled.

Arthur took a deep, shuddering breath and tried lifting his arms again, cursing at his inability to do so. For now, he supposed, he would just be a brick wall.

"What did he do to you?" Arthur said, quietly and muffled against the scratchy fabric of Alfred's shirt.

He didn't expect an answer, and he didn't get one in words. Alfred just shook his head, surely messing up his hair against Arthur's shoulder.

Alfred was not keen on explaining himself at that moment, he just felt like he needed to vent. Arthur was skinny and lanky in his arms, not much of a pillow, but it was better than nothing. He had spent a few days doing nothing but sulking and crying, yet it had done no justice whatsoever. Now, though, he felt like he was getting somewhere. It's odd, unpleasant, the feeling of crying in front of another person, yet it's relieving. He felt Arthur struggle, as if he wanted to move, but Alfred kept nerves of steel and held him in place. His heart was pounding and he knew Arthur could feel it, even possibly hear it, but he didn't care, as long as the burden was lifted just the smallest bit. He could feel Arthur's heart beating slower than his own, calm, resting, despite his tense posture.

Then, finally, Arthur relaxed a little. He turned his head to the left, resting against Alfred's shoulder. He slithered his arm out of Alfred's vicegrip and gave him a sort of one-armed hug in return, more uncomfortable than he would like, but still, it was something.

The dampness on his shoulder did not cease and Arthur worried, feeling Alfred gather him even closer.

"What did he do to you?" Arthur said again, accepting that he was trapped there for now.

Alfred didn't even know how to begin.

USUKUSUK

**AN: Most awkward hug in the history of all hugs ever. Hmmm why is everything I write so painfully awkward? I think I need professional help.**

**Also I'm sorry. I love Francis, I do. It's just. The idea pulled me onto its bandwagon before I even had a chance to run, okay? Okay. **

**In case I haven't warned you, this whole fic is basically just a barrage of shitstorms comin' right at ya. There's so much _stuff_ packed in here that I don't even know what to do with myself. Just wait 'til chapter 20 or so, eesh. That's a doozey. **

**Until next time.**


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